The main piece of health and safety legislation in the UK (the Health and Safety at Work Act) makes it a legal duty that employers prepare a written statement of their health and safety policy and communicate that policy to their employees. In addition, you need to clearly set out the organisation and arrangements you have in place for the implementation of the health and safety policy.

Clearly, this is an important document. If it's going to be effective, its preparation requires more than just throwing together a few legally compliant sounding sentences and considering the job done, box ticked.

The health and safety policy can make or break the entire health and safety culture within a business. Everything a business does in connection with its health and safety arrangements should flow from this written health and safety policy statement. It's that important.

All this is not to suggest that it needs to be an onerous or burdensome undertaking, but clearly, it's not something that you should be copying and pasting from the internet and hoping for the best (trust us, it happens more than you might think).