Students’ Union Bournemouth University Volunteer Support Office

Duty of Care Policy Statement

The duty of care is a general legal duty on all individuals and organisations to avoid carelessly causing injury to persons. It requires everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to be done to protect the health and safety of others at the workplace. This duty is placed on:

- All employers/organisations

- Their employees/volunteers;

- Any others who have an influence on the hazards in a workplace

The latter includes contractors and those who design, manufacture, import, supply or install plant, equipment or materials used in the workplace. The duty is regardless of the size of the organisation, its income or whether the organisation has paid staff.

‘Reasonably practicable’ means that the requirements of the law vary with the degree of risk in a particular activity or environment which must be balanced against the time, trouble and cost of taking measures to control the risk. It allows the duty holder to choose the most efficient means for controlling a particular risk from the range of feasible possibilities. The duty holder must show that it was not reasonably practicable to do more than what was done or that he/she has taken ‘reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence’

In accordance with our duty of care to individuals volunteering for the Students’ Union we aim to provide:

- A safe volunteering environment;

- Information and instruction on workplace hazards and supervision of volunteers in safe work;

- Monitoring of the health of volunteers and related records keeping;

-The provision of health and safety advice;

- Monitoring of the conditions at any volunteering environment under our control and management.

We will ensure that:

- For each volunteering activity a risk assessment is carried out to identify hazards, assess risks and put in place control measures for these.

- All volunteers are made aware of the Students’ Union Health & Safety Policy.

- All student and staff volunteers are adequately insured under the Union ’s current insurance policy.

For individuals volunteering at an organisation’s premises external to the Students’ Union the duty of care will pass to that organisation. We will ensure that each organisation is aware of and agrees to this and provides us with a copy of its Health & Safety Policy and any other policies relevant to the volunteer.

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