Health, Safety and Wellbeing Service

Supporting you...

We offer a comprehensive and professional consultancy, advice and guidance service. This includes a broad range of strategic and operational health, safety and wellbeing support.

Welcome to Staffordshire County Council’s Health, Safety and Wellbeing Service. We offer a comprehensive and professional consultancy, advice and guidance service. This includes a broad range of strategic and operational health, safety and wellbeing support.

Our teams have a wealth of experience delivering high quality, responsive, value for money services and understands the unique needs and challenges of the education sector.

Working in partnership with your senior leadership team we can guide and support you towards successful health, safety and wellbeing management.

The Health, Safety and Wellbeing Service is made up of several teams:

Health and Safety, Occupational Health including our Staff Counselling Service “ThinkWell”, and Design and Technology Support Service.

We are committed to offering you a unique range of health, safety and wellbeing services to help you deliver the very best for your pupils and employees.

Health and Safety

Health and safety is important for any school and academy. Your senior leadership team and governing body have legal responsibilities for the health and safety of your pupils, staff and visitors. We provide professional, practical consultancy advice and guidance on health, safety and wellbeing issues.

Our experienced team of health and safety advisors already provide a valued service to nearly 400 schools and academies. We understand the application of health and safety in schools and academies and the needs of pupils and staff.

We offer a broad range of health, safety and wellbeing support and will work in partnership with your senior leadership team to guide you towards successful health and safety management.

You can be confident in getting the support your school or academy needs with our comprehensive Health and Safety SLA which includes:

Acting as your competent health and safety advisor in accordance with the Management Regulations.
Providing professional consultancy advice, guidance and support on:
- Local policy and arrangements
- Defining and clarification of health and safety roles
- Development of local safe working practices
- Assistance with complex risk assessments
A single contact point for all health and safety queries via our Health and Safety Duty Officer.
Health and safety planning meetings to support your school in improving its performance, management systems, competency and skills.
An audit of your existing health and safety management systems and provision of a report and action plan.
Investigation of any serious accidents and support the management of the immediate and ongoing impact of a serious incident.
Opportunity to attend regular health and safety update briefings to improve information, skills and knowledge
Annual access to a smart survey tool on employee stress and wellbeing.
Access to ‘My Health and Safety’ a web based accident and incident management system.

“Since we switched our Health & Safety support last year to Staffordshire County Council, I have found the service to be excellent. The range of resources and information available from the online portal has also meant that we have been able to quickly find answers to queries. A recent Health & Safety Audit was conducted and the experience was overall a positive one, with constructive feedback given in a timely manner and support provided to address any actions to be taken.”

School Business Manager, Our Lady’s Catholic Academy

Bespoke Services

The health and safety team also offer arrange of single purchase products (see below) as well as the ability to bespoke services to meet your needs:

Fire Risk Assessment
Design and development of bespoke risk assessments
Hire of employee wellbeing self service station
Audit of your health and safety management systems and provision of a supportive action plan.
Health and safety training events - delivered on your site or at our central location.

Occupational Health

Occupational health is an important branch of preventative medicine that benefits both employers and staff.

Staff sickness and absence is something that every school and academy has to manage. Health issues are a problem for both employees and employers as illness can leave vital jobs uncovered and put an employee’s job or income at risk.

An Occupational Health service can provide solutions for both.

Occupational Health can help to prevent employees becoming ill due to work and work with people who have health problems to continue or return to work.

Our Occupational Health service is an Occupational Nurse led service with access to a Consultant Occupational Health Physician. We are specialists in workplace health and medicine and are familiar with schools and academies. You will benefit from our objective and impartial advice. We can help you reduce general management time spent dealing with sickness absence issues and assist your employees to return-to-work faster than if things were left to run their course. The early intervention of one of our highly experienced professionals can produce rapid results.

“This is the first time I have had to make an occupational health referral and the service has been excellent – prompt, efficient and highly valuable”

Mr S. Kelly, Headteacher, Charnwood Primary

You can be confident in getting the support your school or academy needs with our comprehensive Occupational Health Service. We will:

Provide a timely and effective confidential pre-employment health screening service, compliant with the Equality Act 2010.
Offer a management referral process where we can advise on managing employee ill health and sickness absence. This will include advising on health issues that may be affected by work or that may affect the ability to work.
Devise, co-ordinate and monitor a return to work programme.
Highlight any health issues covered within disability legislation and advise you on reasonable adjustments to allow an employee to return to work in some capacity.
Advise sick employees on what they should be asking their own GP.
Identify if an employee will not be returning in the medium term (or at all) and give some idea on timescales for a particular case.
Offer a range of other “Pay as you Use” services such as physiotherapy and health screening.

Counselling Service ‘ThinkWell’

There are times when life feels like an uphill struggle but getting help early can make all the difference.

ThinkWell provides friendly, confidential, fast track access to prevention and early intervention services which meet the needs of individuals who are struggling with their emotional wellbeing. The support available includes self-help courses and independent counselling (either by telephone or face to face).

The counselling Service operates to British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy Guidelines (BACP) in the workplace which applies a strict code of ethics.

Colleagues who work for schools or academies who buy the Occupational Health SLA can request support for themselves directly from ThinkWell. These self referrals are strictly confidential and managers will not be notified or receive reports.

“I feel this is a very valuable service and has helped me find a new perspective on things”

To ensure individuals get the help they need, we also offer management referrals with reports on a pay as you use basis. Employees will be assessed when the referral is received and allocated the appropriate support. The assessment will provide immediate confidential advice for both the individual and the manager about how to support their wellbeing.

ThinkWell can provide trauma counselling assisting schools/academies to support employees who have been the victim of workplace violence, involved in a serious workplace incident or dealing with the death of a colleague or pupil.

Design & Technology

Delivering the Design & Technology curriculum can be interesting, fascinating and stimulating; however, it can also be frustrating or hazardous if machinery fails to operate due to lack of suitable maintenance, servicing or repair.

Ensuring Design & Technology machinery operates effectively and safely is an essential part of managing health and safety in schools and academies.

Schools and academies must have suitable arrangements in place to ensure that all D&T machinery is regularly inspected maintained; and repaired to minimise the risks to the safety of users in accordance with H&S Legislation and British Standard (BS: 4163:2014) ‘Health and Safety for Design and Technology in Schools and Similar Establishments – Code of Practice’.

Our competent and experienced engineers will minimise the risks to the health and safety of your pupils and staff through the inspection, maintenance and repair of your D&T workshop machinery.

As we already work with the majority of Staffordshire and Stoke educational establishments we fully understand your educational requirements.

“A must-buy service I can highly recommend for any school college or academy. The annual machine safety inspection and report are worth the financial outlay alone for the peace of mind it provides D&T staff and senior leadership teams regarding health and safety.”

Malcolm Eyre - Entrust Staffordshire Technology Engineering Maths (STEM) Consultant

You can be confident we will solve your D&T needs and can offer you the following with the services we provide:

Support you in complying with your legal and moral obligations as required by H&S legislation and responsibilities within your D&T curriculum area.
Accessible competent D&T engineers who are able to provide advice and support including advice on the life expectancy of certain D&T machinery; what D&T machinery to procure; enabling you to plan and budget for the future.
An annual safety/condition inspection of your D&T machinery including an emailed report.
Repairs undertaken using original manufacturer’s parts where possible

Local Exhaust Ventilation Thorough Examination and Test: Pay as You Use Service

Ensuring Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) systems in Design & Technology curricula operate effectively is an essential part of managing health and safety in schools and academies.

Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) is used to remove or reduce the level of contamination in workplace atmospheres and therefore reduce the risk of ill-health in staff, students and visitors. It is essential that schools and academies ensure LEV is provided where a risk assessment shows it is required, that it is used, and that it is maintained in good working order. It is also essential that the correct type of LEV is installed so that contaminants are removed from the air.

It is the employer’s responsibility to conduct regular inspections of their LEV systems to check for blockages and leaks which could reduce the efficiency of the system and to ensure they continue to provide the necessary protection. LEV systems must also have a statutory periodic Thorough Examination and Test (at least every 14 months) carried out by a competent person; and, a record of this maintained for at least 5 years.

Our Design & Technology Support Service can assist you in complying with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulation 9 by undertaking this statutory Thorough Examination & Test of your LEV system(s). The report from our Thorough Examination and Test will provide detailed, practical recommendations as required by HSG 258 to comply with the regulations.