VTCT Level 4 Diploma in Permanent Hair Removal and Skin Rejuvenation
UV40462 Management of health, safety and security in the salon
Outcome questions
Outcome 1
e. Evaluate the reliability and effectiveness of a risk assessment
Risk assessment is a straightforward and structured method of ensuring the risks to the health,
safety, and wellbeing of employees (and others) are suitably eliminated, reduced, or controlled. The
main purpose of risk assessments is to identify health and safety hazards and evaluate the risks
presented within the workplace, evaluate the effectiveness and suitability of existing control
measures, ensure additional controls (including procedural) are implemented wherever the
remaining risk is anything other than low and to prioritize further resources if needed to ensure the
above.
It is the responsibility of the player or self-employed person to carry out the risk assessment at work
or to appoint someone with the relevant knowledge, experience and skills to do so. Once hazard
have been identified, the associated risks evaluated and steps taken to minimise the potential
effects, the next step for an employer is to clearly and effectively communicate the risk assessment
process and content to relevant parties. The process of communication is more effectively achieved
if the relevant persons are involved with the risk assessment process at every stage. The person
carrying out an activity or task is often best placed to provide details on the associated hazards and
risks and should participate fully in the completion of the risk assessment.
When completing a risk assessment it is important to clearly define some keywords:
An accident i.e. unplanned event that results in loss.
A Hazard i.e. something that has the potential to cause harm.
A risk i.e. the likelihood and severity of a negative occurrence, injury, ill health, damage, loss
resulting from the hazard.
There are different types of risk assessments required within any workplace and should be
proportionate and relevant to the operational activities being undertaken. In many industries, there
are specific legislative requirements that apply. For example in environments where hazardous
substances are used a control of substances hazardous to health assessment COSHH should be
completed.
Common types of risk assessments:
Fire risk assessments, Manual handling risk assessment, display screen equipment risk assessment,
cosh risk assessments.
Risk assessments are straightforward and a structured method of ensuring the risks to the health,
safety and wellbeing of employees are suitably eliminated, reduced or controlled.
f. Analyse the importance of health, safety and security practices
By protecting your workers, you reduce absences, ensuring that your workplace is more efficient and
productive. Research shows that workers are more productive in workplaces that are committed to
health and safety. Reducing down-time caused by illness and accidents means less disruption and
saves your business money. As a small business employer, you have a responsibility to your
employees to maintain workplace safety. Safety measures for minimizing chemical hazards,
ergonomic risks, infection risks, and fire hazards are simple to implement and follow.
A health and safety plan is to help you control and eliminate potential risks, making sure you
communicate to your employees whatever is decided as part of the plan and so that everyone is
working towards creating a safer workplace together. Another way to make sure everyone is striving
for the same health and safety goals is providing health and safety training to all of your staff, this
should be a standard practice where the risk of injury is naturally higher. Once all the staff has
undergone their health and safety training regular meetings should be held where employees can
raise any concerns and suggest improvements towards health and safety in the workplace
environment. This will show that management cares about their safety and making them feel more
valued whilst allowing team leaders to find out about hazards they may have missed themselves. All
health and safety records should be kept securely and updated regularly this includes when
incidents occur, when training has been completed and where concerns have been raised and of
course locked outcomes. Having this level of disability overall health and safety related activity
should help increase transparency and subsequently encourage a higher standard of healthy be
safety in the workplace.
All the laws are in place in order to protect the employer and employee of the salon as well as its
customers. The data protection act of 1998, employees must collect adequate information, including
any medical condition, employment history, convictions and credit history from the first visit. This
information needs to be kept up-to-date and no longer than necessary and it must be kept safe and
secure and confidential. The main justification for implementation of the data protection act of 1998
is that it will minimise the risk of hazards in the workplace. The background information is important
from removing risk pre-emptively.
g. Justify proposals and recommendations for health, safety and security practices
1. Inspect your workplace
Before implementing an innovative approach to health and safety in the workplace at your
organization, you need to carry out a full inspection. Call in a registered health and safety officer to
help with this, as they will be best placed to identify potential hazards or pitfalls in the layout of your
workplace.
2. Create a health and safety plan
A health and safety plan to help you control and eliminate potential risks can be a tremendous help.
Make sure you communicate to employees whatever is decided as part of the plan so that everyone
is working towards creating a safer workplace together.
3. Train employees in health and safety at work
Another way to make sure everyone is striving for the same health and safety goals is to provide
health and safety training for all staff. This should be standard practice in labor-intensive jobs where
the risk of injury is naturally higher.
4. Hold regular meetings
Once all staff have undergone health and safety training, regular meetings should be held where
employees can raise any concerns and suggest improvements to health and safety in the workplace
moving forward. This will show them that management cares about their safety, making them feel
more valued, while allowing team leaders to find out about hazards they may have missed.
5. Maintain health and safety records
Health and safety records should be kept and updated regularly, including when incidents occur,
when training has been completed, and where concerns have been raised, with outcomes also
logged. Having this level of visibility overall health and safety-related activity should help to increase
transparency and subsequently encourage a higher standard of health and safety in the workplace.
Outcome 2
c. Explain the importance of compliance with legislation and regulations relating to health, safety
and security practices
Compliance with health & safety regulations is essential. Failure to follow good health and safety
practices can result in accidents, incidents, and ill health. This can have a significant impact on the
business, the employees, and the individual directors or senior managers of the business.
We must as therapists be first aid trained as a minimum standard, we must ensure we have a small
first aid kit as part of our therapist’s kit when we are first aid trained.
One of the ways to ensure personal safety is to perform regular risk assessment which is
documented regularly and dated to ensure that everyone is aware of any changes and that any
concerns are amended regularly. That you aware of the location of all fire exits within a building
that you are working within or from. The evacuation point of a building for both a fire and a bomb
scare. The location of all fire equipment in the case that you are qualified as a fire marshal, to ensure
the equipment used is also to code and within date, such as fire extinguishers being checked and
fitted appropriately, the time scales of the update of these risk assessments should be accordance to
local and national council and government guidelines.
The location of all first aid and defibrillation equipment in the case you are both first aid and
defibrillation trained, if operating from your own premises you must ensure that you note the
locations of all safety equipment for others, you must ensure that its displayed prominently for
fellow colleagues/team members if applicable and clientele for insurance purposes and to ensure
protection for all under the health and safety at work act, the fact that certain products that we use
if they get into your own eyes or that of a clients can cause damage to them means work stations
must have an eyewash, in date available. We must as therapists be first aid trained as a minimum
standard, we must ensure we have a small first aid kit as part of our therapist’s kit when we are first
aid trained.
Files must be kept for inspection on the building, the fire safety, the health and safety of each
individual operating out of a building and first aid and accident books must be kept up to date and
available in salon within reach of a therapist should it be needed. Display equipment if using
electronic point of sale or computerised appointments must be tested annually, eye testing if
electronic equipment is used should be made available on a bi annual basis as a minimum standard.
With the introduction of covid 19 prevention measures items such as screens and health and safety
equipment specifically for the prevention of infection we must ensure that we servicing that
appropriately. All first aiders and Fire Marshal staff must be identified with the use of a tabard, glow
in the dark and it must be visible and within reach of that staff member in the case of a salon
situation a second person must be responsible for the first aid and fire marshal role, when the other
member is away from the business due to sickness or annual leave to ensure legal continuity.
CoSHH Files detailing not only the qualified staff who can work with chemicals must been listed, it
must also be sign posted that ONLY TRAINED persons/colleagues can work with chemicals. Files
must be present listing and detailing all chemicals used in the business premises for the purposes of
that business in this case a salon must be kept.
Masks for certain treatments must be made available if required, relevant notices and eyebaths and
safety equipment must be made available for yourself and if part of a salon your team members. We
must ensure chemicals are stored correctly and safely and all manufacturer’s instructions are
followed to the letter.
In the event of treating someone with a disability or yourself you must ensure that you have a pep
(personal evacuation plan) available so that clients in the event of a fire can be found, treated or
located by the fire brigade.
d. Describe how to manage improvements to increase compliance with health, safety and security
practices
Once you have a health and safety policy in place, you will need to carry out a risk assessment to
evaluate where your workplace currently stands and what you may need to improve.
You will first need to identify hazards and anything that may put your people in danger. This could
be anything from trip hazards to dangerous substances such as cleaning fluids or asbestos.
Once you have identified the risks, you will need to establish who would be at risk to these hazards
You will then need to assess the risks, record the findings, and act accordingly before ensuring that
the entire company is aware of these risks and what they need to do to look after their safety.
Firstly, commitment is an essential element that requires an organization's top management to
commit to safe operations. To do so, approach with facts and statistics. Present top management
with tangible benefits which they can see a return on their investment e.g employee welfare,
reduction in absenteeism, better reporting and a clearer picture of current issues. Approach with
clear and reachable goals. Ideally, you would like to have a commitment to ensuring ZERO harm
within all operations and a promise that everything will be done for all employees and contractors.
Communication across all levels can aid the transition to a safer workplace culture. A great way to
increase safety communication is to hold regular safety talks on topical and relevant safety news in
your industry. Real-life examples of the consequence of poor safety culture can often catch the
attention of some. Making your company safety policy readily available to your employees, can help
with the implementation of expectations and best practices when it comes to the completion of safe
work.
It is paramount that you lead by example; following all safety policies will engage your employees
and encourage them to do the same. If management are willing to commit to safety, employees will
follow suit. Employee buy-in is crucial to have a positive safety culture. Implement a clear
accountability process can aid a positive safety culture. By having responsible persons for health and
safety procedures can help with accountability and promote the metrics of leading by example. An
example of this would be the capabilities of dealing with a crisis and learning from them through
strong safety culture.
Organizations with strong safety cultures understand that emergencies and incidents could occur at
any time and have robust systems in place to immediately deal with them. They have effective
methods of communicating those incidents internally and have the methodologies and the knowhow to investigate and understand their root causes. Most importantly, they lead by example by
learning from these incidents and ensuring it never happens again.
Investment in employee’s safety training and correct techniques demonstrates your commitment to
safety. Effective safety cultures require strong health and safety competencies. This must begin
immediately when the employee joins the organization and is on-boarded, and again during
refresher training and updating skills. Trained employees also embrace safety culture more readily
because they are aware of hazards and the effect that they can have on maintaining workplace
safety.
In addition to having good technical competencies, providing training from supervisors puts a strong
emphasis on leadership, initiative and an out-of-the-box style of thinking. To ensure their safety
culture is consistently maintained, you must ensure that supervisors have the right leadership
attributes to coach their staff and to maintain the correct safety behaviour.
Establishing a safety committee with employees from all areas of your organization can ensure
different opinions and issues are raised. The group decisions from health and safety committees
have a big influence on the overall direction of the organization when it comes to safety initiatives.
Some of the more established committees make decisions on how and where health and safety
budgets are required to be spent. Contribution of individuals are noted, and action items are
designated to individuals within the committee itself for follow ups. Good management and
frequency are vital for the success of the committee.
e. Explain the importance of regularly evaluating health, safety and security practices in the salon
It is important to evaluate health and safety and security practices in the salon because it is a legal
requirement and an insurance requirement. For example, under the Data Protection Act of 1998, it is
important to ensure customer data is kept up to date and for longer than necessary by regularly
reviewing that you are complying with this law. Annual testing of electrical equipment ensures the
safety of the equipment and to comply with the Electricity at Work Regulations of 1989. Regular risk
assessment provides a hazard free and safe environment.