The Health and Safety (Sharp Instruments in Healthcare) Regulations 2013 post implementation review (10 May 2023)

Summary

The Health and Safety (Sharp Instruments in Healthcare) Regulations 2013 aimed to:

• minimise burdens on public, independent and third sector employers and ensure businesses in UK are not placed at competitive disadvantage relative to EU counterparts
• offer good standards of protection to healthcare workers from risk of sharps injury at work
• see a fall in sharps injury numbers.

This post implementation review (PIR) aimed to assess the success of these objectives. It found that:

• stakeholder consultation provided evidence of the increasing use of safer sharps across all healthcare sectors.
• evidence from RCN research and HSE inspections indicates that risks to healthcare workers from sharps injuries remains high.

The policy conclusion from this evidence is that the Regulations are still required, and that the Regulations’ objectives cannot be met with a system that imposes less burden to business.