Five Health and Safety Resolutions Worth Keeping

Five health and safety jobs that take under an hour each — starting with the walkways, because slips and trips are 30% of reported workplace injuries.

Updated 20 September 2026 7 min read By The Training Co.

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Five health and safety resolutions worth actually keeping: clear the walkways — slips, trips and falls on the same level are the most common kind of non-fatal workplace injury in Great Britain at 30% of RIDDOR-reported cases; check your first aid kit and your first aiders’ expiry dates; test your smoke alarms; tidy and inspect trailing cables; and review your risk assessments if anything changed last year. None of these costs anything, and four of the five take under an hour.

Health and safety resolutions are easier to keep than gym memberships, mostly because they are finished within the hour. Here are five that genuinely reduce the chance of someone getting hurt.

Where injuries actually come from

Worth knowing before you decide where to spend your effort. These are HSE’s figures from RIDDOR reports by employers for 2024/25:

Kind of injury	Share of reports	The cheap control
Slips, trips and falls on the same level	30%	Clear walkways, fix flooring, deal with spills, light it properly
Handling, lifting or carrying	17%	Avoid, assess, reduce — and provide the trolley
Struck by a moving object	10%	Segregation, storage, securing loads
Acts of violence	10%	Lone working arrangements, training, reporting culture
Falls from a height	8%	Avoid working at height; proper access equipment

The top two account for almost half of everything reported, and both are addressed by unglamorous housekeeping rather than by anything expensive.

1. Clear the walkways

This is the unglamorous one that does the most good. What to actually do:

Walk your own site as if you had never been there. The hazards you stopped seeing years ago are the ones that catch visitors and new starters.
Clear boxes, deliveries and stock from corridors and stairways — permanently, not just today.
Fix the curled mat, the lifting floor tile and the loose stair nosing.
Check the lighting, particularly on stairs and in storage areas.
Deal with spills immediately, and have wet floor signs where people can actually reach them — then take them away once dry, because permanent signs stop being read.
In winter, keep grit where the outside walkways are, and use it before the frost rather than after the fall. See preventing slips in wet and icy weather.

2. Check the first aid provision — all of it

Two separate jobs, both easy to forget:

The kit. Open it. Things go missing and dressings have expiry dates. Replace what has been used and check it still matches what your needs assessment said you needed.
The people. Workplace first aid certificates last three years. Put every first aider’s expiry date in a shared calendar with a reminder 90 days before. Once a FAW certificate has lapsed, the shorter two-day requalification route may no longer be open, and you end up paying for three days instead of two.

While you are there, ask the question most assessments skip: is there a qualified first aider on site during every shift, and through the summer holidays? If the honest answer is no, that is the gap.

See how long does a first aid certificate last? — and if you have never formally worked out how many first aiders you need, start there.

3. Test the alarms

Smoke alarms should be tested monthly. At home, most models should be replaced entirely after about ten years — check the date on the back, because sensors degrade whether or not the battery is fine.

At work, this sits inside your fire risk assessment along with the things people put off:

Fire doors close properly and are not wedged open
Escape routes and final exits are clear and unlocked
Extinguishers have been serviced and are still where the plan says
Emergency lighting works
Everyone knows the assembly point — including new starters and contractors
When did you last actually run a drill?

4. Sort out the cables

Trailing cables are both the commonest trip hazard and a fire risk. Ten minutes with cable ties and a trunking strip fixes most of it.

While you are down there, look at the state of the cables themselves — a nicked, taped or stretched lead is a genuine hazard, and an overloaded extension block feeding four more extension blocks is worth dealing with before it deals with you. Portable appliance inspection is a related job worth scheduling rather than remembering.

5. Review your risk assessments

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require a suitable and sufficient risk assessment, recorded in writing if you have five or more employees — and the significant findings need to stay current. Ask what changed in the last year:

Has this changed?	Then review
New equipment, processes or substances	The task assessment, COSHH, and training needs
New site, layout or premises	Fire, traffic routes, first aid locations
More people, or new shift patterns	First aid cover, supervision, welfare
Anything actually went wrong	Read the accident book and act on it
New or expectant mothers, young workers, anyone returning after illness	Individual assessments and adjustments
Nothing at all	Write that down and date it — that is also a review

A sixth, if you are feeling ambitious

Ask whether your training is still adequate — which is the actual legal test. Health and safety qualifications have no statutory expiry, but training has to keep pace with the work. If people are doing things they were not trained for when they started, that gap is worth closing.

The related one: does anyone in the organisation actually own health and safety? In a small business it is usually whoever has least time. Naming the person, and giving them an hour a month, is worth more than any policy document.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the most common cause of workplace injury in the UK?

Slips, trips and falls on the same level, which accounted for 30% of non-fatal injuries reported by employers under RIDDOR in 2024/25 — ahead of handling, lifting or carrying at 17%, and struck by a moving object at 10%.

How often should risk assessments be reviewed?

Whenever something significant changes — new equipment, processes, substances, premises, people or working patterns — and after any incident. Many employers also set an annual review as policy. If you have five or more employees, the significant findings must be recorded.

How often should smoke alarms be tested?

Monthly. Most domestic alarms should also be replaced entirely after about ten years, because the sensor degrades regardless of the battery.

When should I book first aid requalification?

We suggest setting a reminder 90 days before the certificate expires. Requalification must be completed before the expiry date; once a FAW certificate has lapsed, the shorter two-day route may no longer be available.

Do health and safety certificates expire?

There is no statutory expiry for health and safety qualifications in the way there is for first aid. The legal requirement is that training remains adequate, so it should be refreshed when roles, equipment, processes or risks change. Many employers adopt a three-year refresher cycle as policy.

Do we need a written health and safety policy?

If you have five or more employees, yes — the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires a written health and safety policy. The same threshold applies to recording the significant findings of your risk assessment.

Should wet floor signs be left out permanently?

No. Signs left out all the time stop being read and become part of the scenery. Put them out when there is a hazard and remove them once the floor is dry.

What if nothing has changed since our last risk assessment?

Record that you reviewed it, note that nothing significant has changed, and date it. That is a legitimate review — what is not acceptable is an assessment nobody has looked at for five years.

Start the year properly

If training is on the list, our health and safety courses cover Levels 1 to 3 plus manual handling, COSHH and risk assessment, and workplace risk assessment explains the method behind all of them. Call 0845 838 4643 or use the enquiry form on this page and we will tell you what is proportionate for your workplace.

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