Health & Safety

The health and safety of our team members, guests and the general public is treated with the utmost importance. Audit performance, compliance and accident rates for all areas of the business are routinely reviewed by the Executive Committee and the Board. Some key features of our health and safety management system are set out below.

Auditing

An extensive system of auditing is deployed in our pubs and offices in order to measure safety performance and identify areas for continual improvement. We have expert safety advisors to assist the audit process, monitor legal compliance, develop safe working practices and provide training to our pubs.

Our pubs are subject to a bi-annual external audit of their food hygiene and health and safety standards, the results of which feed into the evaluation our pub manager’s performance.

Monitoring and recording

We operate sophisticated electronic systems for incident recording, accident analysis, auditing and self-assessment in order to better understand the nature of accidents and incidents and to take the necessary action to prevent them recurring. We constantly monitor enforcement officer visits to ensure that we pick up on any trends and make improvements across the business where possible. In particular, we track the Food Hygiene Ratings awarded to our pubs by Environmental Health Officers at routine food safety inspections and these results feed into our manager’s appraisal process.

Each month the Executive Committee considers a report of the Company’s safety performance and each year, the Company’s record on health and safety is presented to the Board by the Head of Health & Safety.

Training and design

The safe operation of our pubs depends upon safety training, documented safety instructions, safe design and engineering and routine monitoring and self-assessment. All new team members are trained from the outset to ensure a high degree of awareness of safety is sustained.

The operators of our tenanted, leased and franchise pubs are themselves primarily responsible for health and safety with their pubs. However, Marston’s provides documentation and training on health and safety to support them in carrying out these responsibilities effectively.

Marston’s initial work (meeting our obligations as a landlord)

The Initial Work policy operates in our Franchise, Retail, tenanted and Leased pubs. Initial Work is intended to ensure that our pubs are legally compliant on commencement of a new agreement, that the pub is wind and water tight and that the living areas provide suitable accommodation. This process ensures that we are fully compliant with the Pubs Code 2016.