This week, I hand over my blog post to the lovely Helena Whyment-Lester who is a whizz with health and safety. Her blog post is directed towards new bookkeepers who are newly working for themselves from home and how they have a duty of care to themselves ...
Now that you have no one but yourself to look out for you, what about your duty of care to you?
Congratulations and how exciting; you are your own boss working from home! You have become an independent bookkeeper and are now putting into practice all the training and skills you have honed over the years.
Your goal is to give your clients the best of you and your skill set to enable them to do what they do best for their own clients with peace of mind, as you are providing them with what they need. You have worked hard so hard; more than most will ever know.
"Be proud of yourself incredibly proud!"
No one knows exactly what you have sacrificed to get to where you are today, however, what about you? You don’t know what you don’t know and I am here to talk about your own personal health and your personal safety too. Have you actually considered it?
Let me introduce myself. my name is Helena Whyment-Lester. Most people simply call me 'H' and, along with my business partner Peter Broughton, been running Worksafe GB Ltd since 2006.
To make a long story short, I was very ill prior to starting Worksafe and was in and out of the hospital for a long time. You know you're bad when they get you to do basket weaving as rehab and other patients are walking around with scaffolding on their heads from brain surgery. One patient had been literally scalped and another tried to unalive themselves due to work-related incidents and stress.
Laying in my hospital bed all I could think was, "You don’t go to work to die ...“ and that thought never left me as prior to being ill I had been a make-up artist and I absolutely loved my job. So it was a real wake-up call for me to be around people suffering so much from theirs.
I met Peter in 2004 and he was working as a trainer in the gas industry. After many, many discussions around work-related incidents and their causes, we decided to start Worksafe GB Ltd in 2006. Our strapline is "Work Safe - Work Happy" which I personally think is rather good and exactly what we want people to do.
"Alison is our trusted fabulous bookkeeper and her husband Paul does all the clever techie stuff for us!"
So back to the original question: Your personal health & your personal safety. Have you actually considered it? Where to start? I always say that if you or your family were working for an employer what would you expect from them? You would definitely expect your loved one to come home safe and in one piece at the end of their working day.
The main areas of Health & Safety law relevant to home working in 2025 that the law states in Great Britain are at present: "An employer has a duty of care by virtue of Section 2 of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 to employees that work from home". Your employer must carry out a risk assessment under the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (as amended). If the employer has five or more employees this must be written down and covers:
Any hazardous substances provided must comply with Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 ( as amended ) ( COSHH )
Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (as amended)
Electrical equipment must comply with the Electricity at Work Regulations
Regulatory Reform ( Fire Safety ) Order 2005 (RRO). England and Wales
The Fire ( Scotland ) Act 2005 and Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006
Workstations used at home by the employee must comply with Health & Safety DSE (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations
By the way, the Display Screen Equipment regulations also include chairs, desks and computer equipment which may have been provided by an employee, and remember, you are both the employer and the employee now you're working for yourself, so all the above regulations need to be accounted for, whether you are self-employed or trading via a limited company.
Remember, the Common Law ‘Duty of Care‘ applies too, meaning injured employees can make a claim for compensation against the negligence of an employer. Now that you have no one but yourself to look out for you, what about your duty of care to you?
WORKSAFE GB Ltd are specialists in providing high quality Health and Safety workshops. Delivered by experienced, professional trainers, we cover a wide range of Health and Safety issues. We place great emphasis upon group discussion, interaction, and participation in order that the Health and Safety guidelines and Management Standards can be easily and readily applied to your business.
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