Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 Section 40
Section 40 Onus of proving limits of what is practicable
In any proceedings for an offence under any of the relevant statutory provisions consisting of a failure to comply with a duty or requirement to do something so far as is practicable or so far as is reasonably practicable, or to use the best practicable means to do something, it shall be for the accused to prove (as the case may be) that it was not practicable or not reasonably practicable to do more than was in fact done to satisfy the duty or requirement, or that there was no better practicable means than was in fact used to satisfy the duty or requirement.
This is known in Health, Safety and Occupational Hygiene sectors as
“The reverse burden of proof.”
What steps did your organisation take to prevent an accident which has occurred?
Bearing in mind that the “accident” did happen.
If you are not testing in YOUR workplace, have you taken practicable steps to prevent that accident?
At Agriyork400 Ltd we have many years of experience in drug and alcohol testing.
What we do:
Evaluate a company’s existing drug and alcohol policy to advise on compliance from several viewpoints.
Challenge at a tribunal.
Equalities Act/ Anti-Discrimination Laws
Data Protection
If your company does not have a policy, we can provide a template which is legally defensible.
Testing
We provide donor consent forms, drug screening tests, train the trainer sessions so that your own staff can perform the testing.
Tests are simple to use, and the results are available within 10 minutes.
We offer urine and oral fluid Point of Collection Tests.
We recommend oral fluid as it is more hygienic to sample, difficult to adulterate, (= cheat), indicates recent use and therefore potential impairment.
A box of 25 tests costs £275.
These screening tests detect the 8 most commonly abused drugs, both illicit and prescription, and also include an alcohol indicator.
5 random tests per month gives you a powerful deterrent policy.
£55 per month.
Will you be telling the HSE investigator that the programme as briefly described above was “not reasonable”?
Please let us know how we can help.