Health and safety
What's health and safety?
Have a look at what hazards exist in your usual club environment. Are there fire exits? Are there enough toilets and handwash facilities to cover all that might need it? Do you have a first aid kit and people trained in how to use it? What will you do in the event of an accident or civil defense emergency? Do you have contact numbers for your members’ next of kin to ensure they can come and collect a member if they are ill or injured? These are all health and safety issues that you may need to consider to provide a safe and enjoyable environment for your club members.
However big or small your club, you should make sure that you have put plans in to place to deal with health and safety issues. How extensive these plans are will vary, depending on the size and structure of your club. But even if your club is small and uses your local community centre for its meetings, it’s still important that you have considered these issues.
Your legal requirements change according to whether you employ paid staff or not, but in a nutshell, club management and club members should consider the following guidelines to ensure that everyone remains healthy and safe while participating in club activities.
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Developing a policy
Essentially, your club must comply with the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, regardless of the organisational structure you choose. The Act aims to prevent harm to all people at work, and to others who are in, or in the vicinity of, workplaces. This means that employers and others (which means you and your club) must maintain safe working environments and to implement sound health and safety practices.
If your club does not employ anyone, but instead depends on the assistance of a group of volunteers, it is still important that you take all reasonable steps to ensuring the health and safety of members, participants and volunteers. An OSH inspector is still able to review your premises, event or venue and make recommendations for dealing with hazards, but they can’t enforce those recommendations unless you have paid employees.
An important way of ensuring that your club is up to scratch with the Act is by developing a health and safety policy.
Things to include in a health and safety policy:
- Appointing a health and safety coordinator, who will be responsible for ensuring that this health and safety policy is complied with.
- The purpose of the policy. What your policy aims to achieve (e.g. club members and officers need to take all practicable steps to ensure the safety of everyone on the premises.)
- The procedures required to meet the policy.
- Include a checklist or register for the coordinator to regularly use to check for hazards around the building/fields/etc.
- Make sure that staff and volunteers know that they must notify the coordinator of any hazards so that action can be taken to minimize the risk of an injury occurring
- Outline how to deal with hazards that can’t be managed immediately e.g. any hazards not dealt with immediately must be noted and discussed at the next committee meeting.
-Outline emergency evacuation procedures and ensure that these are displayed prominently,
- Outline an incident management procedure – e.g, what to do in the event of an accident.
SPARC provides a comprehensive guide to health and safety legislation as it affects sport and recreation organisations in their publication Supporting Sport: Health and Safety.
We have provided a detailed sample health and safety policy manual in the resources section. This covers off many issues regarding health and safety in the workplace in addition to health and safety issues you may face in a club situation.
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Appointing a coordinator
Your club should ensure that someone within the committee members is allocated the task of being the health and safety coordinator. This does not have to be a separate position, but it can be, if preferred.
It's the health and safety coordinator's role to ensure that the club’s health and safety policies are followed. This includes hazard management, accident reporting, safety checklists and emergency procedures.
We have provided a sample job description for a health and safety coordinator in the resources section.
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Hazard management
One of the most effective ways at reducing the number of accidents that happen at your club is to take the time to identify potential hazards and have a strategy for how to control them.
A hazard is any activity, situation or substance that can cause harm. You can’t manage hazards at your club if you don’t know what they are. Create a hazard identification register.
Regularly spend some time going through a hazard identification checklist. This will enable you to deal with issues as they arise, make a plan for dealing with each hazard and hopefully prevent future injuries.
We have provided a sample hazard identification register in the resources section that you can use for your club.
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Emergency procedures
Make sure you have clearly notified everyone at your clubrooms or venue of the emergency procedures to take in the event of fire, earthquake or other major incident. If your club does not own or rent it’s own premises, then these procedures should be readily available from the venue or community centre you are using. If your club meets in a private home, then it’s a good idea to let everyone know where the various exits are as well as toilets and other general information.
Make sure you have contacted your local Civil Defence centre and/or local council to establish the correct guidelines for action in the event of a Civil Defence emergency. You should ensure that you have enough emergency food/water/blankets, etc to be able to keep your members safe should an major incident such as an earthquake occur whilst your club is meeting.
More information on planning for civil defence emergencies can be found in the front of your phonebook and yellow pages as well as on the Civil Defence website.
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Accident recording, reporting and investigation
If you employ staff, you are legally obliged to record and investigate all accidents that happen at your place of work. You are also obliged to notify all accidents that involve serious harm to an employee to your nearest OSH office.
Even if you don’t employ paid staff, it’s still a good idea to record all accidents down on a register so that you can use this information to prevent future accidents of the same kind.
We have provided a sample accident report form in the resources section.
SPARC has also produced a comprehensive guide to health and safety legislation as it affects sport and recreation organisations in Supporting Sport – Health and Safety. This document outlines your legal responsibilities if you are an employer.
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Training courses
There are lots of first aid and safety courses available. Red Cross New Zealand or St John New Zealand both offer a variety of health and safety training courses around the country.
There are also commercial training courses available to help you find out more about health and safety in the workplace. Check your Yellow Pages or search on Google to find suitable courses near you.
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Resources and more information
For more information on first aid and training courses:
More information on preventing accidents and procedures you should if injuries or an emergency occur can be found at:
Other resources you can use for your club include:
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