• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
0203 011 4242   
Contact us
Praxis42

Praxis42

Health and Safety eLearning Consultancy

  • About
        • ★ Our valuesOur aspirations and core competencies.
        • ➤ Accreditations
        • ➤ Careers
        • ➤ Case studies
        • 💬 Contact UsFor your fire, health and safety needs.
        • ➤ Meet the team
        • ➤ Reviews
        • ➤ Terms and conditions
        • Latest resources

          • Ep 10: What is a dynamic risk assessment?
          • Causes of stress at work and how to support employees
          • Ep 15: Enhancing the human element – Silvana Martin
          • What is a traffic management audit?
          • How to create a fire evacuation plan for your business
        • Latest courses

          • whistleblowing awareness course Whistleblowing Awareness £25.00
          • whistleblowing-for-managers-course-image Whistleblowing for Managers £25.00
          • Tiny paper cut out people Safeguarding Adults at Risk £25.00
          • Cyber attack image of devices Cyber attacks and strategic cyber planning for managers £25.00
          • Behavioural Safety Course Behavioural Safety £25.00
  • Consulting
        • ☰ Consulting ServicesTechnology-led solutions by industry experts.
        • ➤ Fire, Health & Safety Helpdesk
        • ➤ Fire Risk Assessments
        • ➤ Health and Safety Assessments
        • ➤ Health and Safety Audits
        • ➤ ISO Standards
        • ✎ Audits and assessmentsEvaluate organisational compliance with on-site assessments and audits.
        • ➤ Legislation Awareness and Alerts
        • ➤ Policy Development Service
        • ➤ Virtual DSE Assessments
        • ➤ Workplace Transport Risk Assessment
        • Recent Posts

          • Ep 10: What is a dynamic risk assessment?
          • Causes of stress at work and how to support employees
          • Ep 15: Enhancing the human element – Silvana Martin
          • What is a traffic management audit?
          • How to create a fire evacuation plan for your business
  • eLearning
        • ☰ Course LibraryView our library of over 50 eLearning courses.
        • ☑ Assessment ToolsRecord results, monitor performance and take action.
        • ➤ Compliance courses
        • ➤ Cyber courses
        • ➤ Fire safety courses
        • ➤ Food safety courses
        • ☼ SHINEDiscover SHINE – our complete learning management system.
        • ✎ Bespoke trainingTailored to your organisation and processes.
        • ➤ Health and safety courses
        • ➤ HR courses
        • ➤ IOSH courses
        • ➤ Wellbeing courses
        • Popular courses

          • Online Manual Handling Course
          • EMF and RF Awareness
          • UK GDPR and Data Protection Awareness
          • Fire Safety Training
          • Display Screen Equipment Training
        • Latest courses

          • whistleblowing awareness course Whistleblowing Awareness £25.00
          • whistleblowing-for-managers-course-image Whistleblowing for Managers £25.00
          • Tiny paper cut out people Safeguarding Adults at Risk £25.00
          • Cyber attack image of devices Cyber attacks and strategic cyber planning for managers £25.00
          • Behavioural Safety Course Behavioural Safety £25.00
  • Topics
        • ▶ AsbestosAccess our guides on asbestos health and safety in the workplace.
        • ▶ Building safetyDiscover our building and premises health and safety guides.
        • ▶ Display Screen Equipment (DSE)Manage risks associated with incorrect use of DSE through our resources.
        • ▶ EMF and RFStay up-to-date with our EMF and RF safety guides and advice.
        • ▶ Fire safetyAll you need to learn about fire safety and compliance.
        • ▶ Food SafetyNews, advice and guides covering food hygiene and safety.
        • ▶ HomeworkingAccess our guides on working from home and employee safety.
        • ▶ WellbeingEmployee wellbeing industry advice, trends and support.
        • ▶ Workplace safetyGet workplace health and safety advice and access to support.
        • Latest resources

          • Ep 10: What is a dynamic risk assessment?
          • Causes of stress at work and how to support employees
          • Ep 15: Enhancing the human element – Silvana Martin
          • What is a traffic management audit?
          • How to create a fire evacuation plan for your business
        • Latest courses

          • whistleblowing awareness course Whistleblowing Awareness £25.00
          • whistleblowing-for-managers-course-image Whistleblowing for Managers £25.00
          • Tiny paper cut out people Safeguarding Adults at Risk £25.00
          • Cyber attack image of devices Cyber attacks and strategic cyber planning for managers £25.00
          • Behavioural Safety Course Behavioural Safety £25.00
  • Sectors
        • ▶ ConstructionNews, guides and support covering the construction sector.
        • ▶ HospitalityGuides, advice and support for hospitality organisations.
        • ▶ ManufacturingManufacturing health and safety resources and guides.
        • ▶ OfficeDiscover how to enhance office safety with our expert guides.
        • ▶ RetailHealth and safety issues that affect stores and retail premises.
        • ▶ TelecommunicationsLatest advice and guidance for the telecommunications sector.
        • Latest resources

          • Ep 10: What is a dynamic risk assessment?
          • Causes of stress at work and how to support employees
          • Ep 15: Enhancing the human element – Silvana Martin
          • What is a traffic management audit?
          • How to create a fire evacuation plan for your business
        • Latest courses

          • whistleblowing awareness course Whistleblowing Awareness £25.00
          • whistleblowing-for-managers-course-image Whistleblowing for Managers £25.00
          • Tiny paper cut out people Safeguarding Adults at Risk £25.00
          • Cyber attack image of devices Cyber attacks and strategic cyber planning for managers £25.00
          • Behavioural Safety Course Behavioural Safety £25.00
  • Resources
        • ▶ Resource LibraryComplete library of news, guides and advice.
        • ▶ BlogsAccess our latest guides, advice and industry articles.
        • ▶ WebinarsSign up to our latest webinars and access our archive.
        • ▶ Risk. Sleep. Repeat.Podcast – tune into our latest health, safety and risk podcasts.
        • ▶ VideosTake a look at our video library including our product demos.
        • ▶ Safety Made SimplePodcast – breaking down different health and safety topics.
        • ▶ Fire, Health and Safety FAQsDeveloped by experts covering key queries.
        • Recent Posts

          • Ep 10: What is a dynamic risk assessment?
          • Causes of stress at work and how to support employees
          • Ep 15: Enhancing the human element – Silvana Martin
          • What is a traffic management audit?
          • How to create a fire evacuation plan for your business
  • Client login
health and safety course

What to look for when choosing a health and safety course

Mike Stevens
30th March 2022

Employers are legally required to provide health and safety training to employees. This guide outlines how to pick the best and most appropriate health and safety course for your organisation.

Managing health and safety in the workplace should be high on the list of employers’ and senior management’s priorities. In 2019/20, 693,000 people sustained an injury at work in Britain and 1.6m suffered from a work-related illness.

As well as the personal impact on the individuals affected, organisations can be hit by increased costs from enforcement fines, claims, time lost due to sick leave and reduced productivity. More than 30 million working days are lost each year to work-related illnesses and workplace injuries, at the cost of more than £16 billion.

Training is key to preventing injuries or illnesses, managing costs and encouraging a positive workplace health and safety culture. Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and over 50 related regulations, employers are legally required to provide training to ensure that employees can carry out tasks safely and without risk to health.

Employers’ responsibilities for health and safety training

All employees play a role in maintaining workplace safety and everyone at all levels, including employers, managers, supervisors, contractors and self-employed people, need to have sufficient levels of training.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 outlines employers’ general responsibilities, and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 highlights situations where health and safety training is particularly important. This includes:

  • Induction training for new employees, such as safe working practices, the organisation’s arrangements for first aid, and fire safety and emergency procedures.
  • People who change roles, take on new responsibilities or become exposed to new or increased risks must be made aware of new health and safety risks.
  • Inexperienced employee training should be prioritised as they can be particularly vulnerable to accidents. Inexperienced employees should also be adequately supervised.
  • Employee and health and safety representatives must receive relevant health and safety training.

Training must take place during working hours and employees mustn’t have to pay for it. Training records must be kept to ensure that all employees have been trained which helps employers plan refresher training and for defensibility.

Understand your responsibilities under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and the importance of a risk assessment in keeping employees, customers and others in your workplace safe with our managing safely training course.

Refresher health and safety training

Refresher training should be provided where the training needs analysis identifies a suitable period, risk assessment or accident investigation indicates a need or it is set by guidance or recognised training body such as IOSH . Use your training records to assess if it is needed and its anniversary date.

There is no general rule for refresher training, but it is recommended that training is revisited annually where there might be some criticality, a particular risk or investigations show that it’s required. An online health and safety awareness course is an easy way to do this in most circumstances. Training also needs to be refreshed when an internal incident that causes injury occurs, new equipment is introduced, or a process changes.

Specialist health and safety training

You should use risk assessments to identify any additional needs for health and safety training and if the controls need a level of understanding and adoption.

Certain activities require specialist training and have special requirements such as first aid, fire safety, work at height, working with hazardous materials and manual handling. If you are not carrying out the training in house, you should look for a specialist health and safety course to meet your legal requirements.

What form should health and safety training take?

Training can be carried out in-house by someone who is competent, but many organisations choose to use an external training provider. The best health and safety courses provide comprehensive instruction on how employees can do their job safely and raises awareness of any risks involved and how to deal with them.

There are various training formats, including:

  • Face-to-face training in the ‘classroom’.
  • On-the-job training.
  • Practical training.
  • Open and distance learning.
  • Group or individual training.
  • Online interactive learning.

Online training, such as the Health and Safety Awareness Course by Praxis42, can be a highly effective way to meet your legal requirements because employees can work from their own device and at their own pace. The training can be a combination of all the formats and is often referred to as ‘blended learning’.

Online or eLearning provides employers with records and certificates that are kept in a learning management system (LMS), removing the need for paper documents and the problems with compliance and defensibility. Online courses are a quicker way to get training to new employees and to provide refresher training to experienced employees so that they remain up-to-date on health and safety awareness.

The training you provide and the methods you use should consider the needs of all employees, including those without good levels of English or comprehension, people with poor literacy skills, and employees with disabilities such as hearing or sight restrictions, and those that have particular learner preferences.

What to look for in a health and safety training course provider

Given the importance of health and safety, it is vital you select a provider that is experienced, delivers high-quality training and is competent.

Getting the right health and safety training provider is important as the implications of getting someone not qualified or who lacks experience in the field can be dangerous. Examine the credentials of the provider and assess their experience. Qualified providers will typically have Chartered Health and Safety Practitioners.

If you work with other organisations or know other employers who have provided health and safety training, ask which courses they recommend and what the delegate feedback has been. Consult training providers’ websites for positive testimonials and look for case studies of satisfied clients.

Examine the course content to see if it will meet your risk assessment needs and ask for a free trial so you can assess the quality. If you’re choosing face-to-face training, ask for evidence of the trainer’s experience and qualifications.

Look at whether the course will provide your employees with the level of knowledge they need to safely do their job. If arranging training for specialist tasks such as fire safety or manual handling, ensure all requirements outlined in relevant regulations and guidance are covered.

Training course accreditation

One of the key considerations for selecting training is whether well-respected organisations accredit the health and safety courses. The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), for example, is the Chartered body for safety and health professionals with 44,000 members in 99 countries. Founded in 1945, IOSH is recognised as an industry benchmark. Selecting an IOSH-approved course provides the confidence that your employees will receive quality training that’s up to date, produced by someone competent and has been approved.

Another useful accreditation to look out for is CPD Certification which benefits employees’ continuous professional development, and the Independent Asbestos Training Providers (IATP).

Online eLearning courses

Using eLearning brings many advantages, including reducing the costs of training and compliance for employers. Look out for online courses that provide access to a learning management system (LMS).

An example of a great LMS is SHINE from Praxis42, which removes the chore of correctly filing and keeping track of paper certificates, setting reminders, chasing learners and juggling complex spreadsheets. Instead, all training records can be viewed and managed on one system with training certificates quickly printed as proof of compliance for audits or enforcement agencies’ visits or to provide up-to-the-minute management information in a dashboard.

SHINE also provides real-time feedback on learning progress and allows employers to manage organisation-wide training with tracking, reporting and auditing across teams.

Our IOSH Approved training courses include our Health and Safety Awareness Course and Health and Safety Induction training so you can help protect employees in the workplace and help meet your compliance needs.

Primary Sidebar

Blog categories

  • Assessments
  • Compliance
  • Fire Safety
  • Food Safety
  • Health and Safety
  • HR
  • Mandatory Training
  • Safety Management
  • Wellbeing

Latest guide

Ep 10: What is a dynamic risk assessment?

Ep 10: What is a dynamic risk assessment?

In this episode we focus on dynamic risk assessments, including when to use a dynamic risk assessment and how to undertake one ...
Read more

Latest course

whistleblowing awareness course

Whistleblowing Awareness

Our Whistleblowing Awareness course provides a comprehensive outline into what whistleblowing is and an effective whistleblowing procedure ...
View course
Health safety assessments - main header image

Audits and assessments

Our professional risk assessments, audits and consultancy services help organisations comply with fire, health and safety and HR regulations.
Read more
Praxis42 Consulting services

Consulting

Discover how our fire, health and safety consultants can help your organisation with fire safety and health and safety compliance.
Read more

Sign up to our Praxis42 newsletter

Get the latest fire, health and safety news, guides, webinars, videos and podcasts direct to your inbox. Sign up now!

Related resources

Discover our library of expert guides, webinars and video.

Causes of stress at work and how to support employees
Blog

Causes of stress at work and how to support employees

Here we talk about how to identify and recognise stress, causes of stress at work and practical steps you can take to prevent and manage stress.
Read more
Ep 15: Enhancing the human element - Silvana Martin
Podcast

Ep 15: Enhancing the human element – Silvana Martin

This episode focuses on dealing with stress in the workplace and designing an effective programme to meet the needs of your people.
Read more
What is a traffic management audit?
Blog

What is a traffic management audit?

Discover how a thorough traffic management audit can help your organisation reduce hazards associated with commercial vehicle operations.
Read more
How to create a fire evacuation plan for your business
Blog

How to create a fire evacuation plan for your business

Learn how to create an effective fire evacuation plan for your workplace with our guide.
Read more

Footer

About Praxis42

We're the leading compliance organisation trusted by businesses nationwide to meet their auditing, assessment and training needs. We work with all sectors and size of organisation. We have extensive accreditation and decades of safety management experience.


Company no. 04152524 · VAT no. 770517529

Explore Praxis42

  • Home
  • About
  • Topic
  • Sector
  • Resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Stay up-to-date with the latest health and safety news, advice and offers.

0203 011 4242   info [at] praxis42 [dot] com

© 2023 Praxis42 Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie SettingsReject AllAccept All
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
CookieDurationDescription
__cf_bm30 minutesThis cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
__lc_cid2 yearsThis is an essential cookie for the website live chat box to function properly.
__lc_cst2 yearsThis cookie is used for the website live chat box to function properly.
__oauth_redirect_detectorpastThis cookie is used to recognize the visitors using live chat at different times inorder to optimize the chat-box functionality.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
CookieDurationDescription
_calendly_session21 daysCalendly, a Meeting Schedulers, sets this cookie to allow the meeting scheduler to function within the website and to add events into the visitor’s calendar.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThe _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors.
_gat_gtag_UA_2905818_11 minuteSet by Google to distinguish users.
_gid1 dayInstalled by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
m2 yearsNo description available.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo