Health and Safety

As an Event Organiser, you are responsible for ensuring, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all staff, students and visitors during your events.  The University’s Events Safety Policy details all of the steps that you must take to ensure appropriate Health and Safety precautions are taken throughout your event. The points below are intended to offer only a brief summary – please ensure that you refer to the full Policy in advance of your event to familiarise yourself with all of your responsibilities.

Risk Assessments

It is essential that a suitable risk assessment detailing the arrangements for reasonably foreseeable risk is created for your event. Your risk assessment should include contingencies to deal with incidents and situations as varied as contractors cancelling at short notice, severe weather, or the unavailability of key staff in your team. You will also need to consider the response to more serious emergencies, including major incidents that will require help from the emergency services and implementation of their emergency plans.

You should ensure appropriate management systems are in place for each phase of the event to make sure health and safety risks are controlled.  While the numbers onsite during the ‘public’ period will be significantly greater, the need for safety management during build up, load-in, breakdown and load-out is just as important as this is likely to be when the highest-risk work activities are carried out.

Information to help with the creation of your event risk assessment can be found on Appendix 2 of the University's Events Safety Policy along with a sample risk assessment - Appendix 4. 

All external contractors must compile separate risk assessments for their work, a method statement for the installation of any temporary structures and make available a copy of their third party liability insurance. 

For further help and advice with risk assessments, please contact the Events and Conferencing Team or speak to your local area safety coordinator.

General Health and Safety Considerations

When planning your event, the following aspects of Health and Safety may need to be considered, depending on the size and scale of your event:

• Fire Safety precautions
• Health and Safety announcements
• General Security, including crowd control, exclusion of unwanted visitors and dealing with drink/drugs/illegal substances
• Parking and traffic issues
• Sound and noise
• Erection of temporary structures
• Methods of communication between team members in an emergency

Refer to the Events Safety Policy for more information.

First Aid

The level of First Aid provision you will need at your event will depend on the numbers attending, the profile of the audience and the type of event.  This should be detailed in the Risk Assessment for your event.  For smaller events, it may be sufficient to ensure some of the staff working at the event are trained in first aid but for larger events, it may be necessary to book First Aid provision from a recognised provider.  A number of voluntary organisations will provide cover for a fee.

If an accident occurs during an event, you should take full details at the time of the incident, including the name and address of the injured person, the nature of the accident and where the accident occurred.  Details of the incident should be recorded on the University's Incident Recording Information System (IRIS) and assigned to the relevant Incident Investigator for further processing as required.

Children/Adults at Risk

If your event is likely to be attended by children and/or vulnerable adults, it is important that you give consideration to the University’s safeguarding arrangements.  Please refer to the Safeguarding Children and Adults at Risk Policy or contact the Legal Services Unit, Ext.5002 or email for any assistance implementing the policy.

COVID-19

Event organisers should follow the latest government guidance in relation to COVID-19