When establishing a model for the management of the prevention of occupational hazards, the company bears direct responsibility for its choice and the implementation of the relevant activities. These prevention functions may be carried out in accordance with Royal Decree 39/1997 on Prevention Services and in line with the four different organisational models for prevention set out in the law.
These occupational health and safety models are as follows:
- Personal commitment by the business owner.
- Assumption of duties by a designated employee.
- Hiring an External Health and Safety Service
- Establishment of an in-house Health and Safety Service or the company’s participation in a joint Health and Safety Service.
Personal commitment by the business owner
The employer may take responsibility for prevention measures (with the exception, of course, of those relating to health surveillance, which will be carried out by a specialist service) if:
- The company has fewer than 10 permanent staff, including the employer. If the company has fewer than 25 employees on the payroll and a single workplace, you can do that too.
- If the activity you are engaged in is not included in the Annex I to Royal Decree 39/1997.
- If the employer normally carries out their work at the workplace.
- The employer must have sufficient capacity to carry out the preventative measures required. From a training perspective, the law refers to the Basic Level Course in Occupational Health and Safety.
This is an entirely voluntary decision; within that freedom, one may also choose to limit oneself to a specific type of duty whilst delegating the others. What must be made clear, however, is that when the Occupational Health and Safety Act allows the employer to assume certain preventive measures, this does not exempt it from fulfilling the obligations associated with it; in other words, the structure and preventive measures must be in place within the company, even if only in their most basic form.
Assumption by an employee
The employer may also delegate the responsibility for preventive measures to one or more employees of the company. In this case, the designated employee or employees must:
- To have the ability and training required to carry out their duties. Once again, it is specified that they must have received specific training, namely the Basic Level Course in Occupational Risk Prevention. The syllabus and content of these courses are set out in Chapter IV of the Prevention Services Regulations.
- To have the necessary time and resources (the company should facilitate this).
- There will be enough of them, depending on the size of the company, risks existing ones and distribution.
The transition of an ordinary worker to the role of health and safety officer – thereby acquiring rights, obligations, powers and duties not determined by the employer but by the law itself – depends on one thing: that has been appointed by the employer to carry out preventive measures.
Both the appointment and the termination of the duties of a worker responsible for health and safety are at the employer’s discretion. The duration of the appointment is indefinite, although it may also be limited in advance.
Their role is twofold: they will act in an advisory capacity to the employer whilst also performing executive duties, being largely responsible for implementing or verifying the preventive measures deemed appropriate.
External health and safety service
In cases where an employer is unable to organise the necessary resources to fulfil their obligations regarding health and safety, the law provides for the existence of specialist bodies, independent of companies, which are dedicated to carrying out specific health and safety activities.
In this way, the employer may enter into an agreement with an external occupational health and safety service (one that is external to the company itself), either in full or in part, depending on which health and safety activities they wish to cover, as they are unable to carry them out using their own resources.
The employer may engage an external occupational health and safety service if the company has between 1 and 500 employees, and if it includes the four specialisms of occupational health and safety including its services (Health and Safety, Occupational Hygiene, Ergonomics, Psychosocial Health and Occupational Medicine)
The External Health and Safety Service, is ‘the set of human and material resources required to carry out preventive measures, with the aim of ensuring the adequate protection of workers’ health and safety, whilst providing advice and assistance to the employer, workers, their representatives and the specialist representative bodies’.
In-house Health and Safety Service
The In-house Health and Safety Service It is the most comprehensive form of internal business organisation in the field of health and safety. It should be borne in mind that certain health and safety activities can be arranged through an external health and safety service.
In legal terms, this is understood to mean In-house Health and Safety Service, defined as ‘the combination of human and material resources required to carry out preventive measures to ensure the adequate protection of workers’ health and safety, whilst providing advice and assistance to the employer, workers and their representatives, and the specialist representative bodies’.
Members of the in-house prevention service are bound by a duty of exclusivity in the performance of their duties, and they are also part of the company’s internal structure; in other words, they are permanent staff.
With regard to its establishment, an employer is obliged to set up an in-house prevention service in the following cases:
- If the company has more than 500 employees,
- If the company has between 250 and 500 employees and its activities are listed in Annex I of Royal Decree 39/1997.
- If the competent public authority declares that there is an obligation to do so on a discretionary basis.
The In-House Health and Safety Service must be a dedicated organisation set up by the employer to fulfil occupational health and safety objectives, and as such has executive, advisory and support functions. These functions are directed towards both the company and its workers. It can be said that the functions to be carried out by the in-house Prevention Service are the same as those of an external Prevention Service.
Joint Health and Safety Service
There is one final form of prevention management, which is regarded as a variant of the previous one, namely the in-house prevention service. This involves the establishment of a Joint Health and Safety Service. This may occur when several companies from the same economic sector or the same geographical area jointly set up a Prevention Service which will be dedicated exclusively to managing health and safety for the participating companies.
LThe Act allows for the joint incorporation of a company by several businesspeople unique prevention services. Whether or not such services have separate legal personality, they shall be regarded as services provided by the companies that establish them and must have the resources required for such services; the remaining requirements shall also apply to them. These services must bear in mind that their preventive activities are limited to the companies participating in them.
The law provides that Joint Prevention Services may be established among those companies that carry out activities simultaneously at the same workplace, building or shopping centre.
They may also be established through collective bargaining or by decision of the companies concerned. It may also be agreed to set up Joint Prevention Services amongst companies belonging to the same sector of industry or the same business group, or which carry out their activities in an industrial estate or a defined geographical area.
