Health and safety at work

Do you have staff? As an employer in the Netherlands, you must seek the support of an occupational health and safety expert to deal with certain occupational health and safety tasks. An occupational health and safety expert advises you on improving working conditions.

Occupational health and safety experts are:

• company doctor
• occupational hygienist
• safety expert
• labour and organisation expert

Which tasks does an occupational health and safety expert have?

You must get an occupational health and safety expert for certain occupational health and safety tasks. A health and safety expert must assess your risk assessment & evaluation (RI&E). They must also help you draw up, implement, and execute the RI&E.

You must call in a company doctor for the following occupational health and safety tasks:

1. supporting your sick employee through reintegration (absence management) and preventing sickness
2. medical examinations for new employees (pre-employment)
3. voluntary periodic occupational health examinations (PAGO) or preventive medical examinations (PMO) (in Dutch)
4. consultation hours with a company doctor

Organising health and safety support

It is up to you as an employer how you organise the health and safety support for your employees. You can either hire a health and safety agency or employ a health and safety officer. Whichever option you choose, the health and safety expert or agency must be properly certified. The company doctor must be registered in the BIG register.

Support from a health and safety agency

You can call in a health and safety agency to support you with your occupational health and safety affairs. This is called a safety net scheme (vangnetregeling, in Dutch). You enter into a contract with 1 certified agency. A health and safety agency employs several health and safety experts. You can find certified agencies in the register of the Stichting Beheer Certificatieregeling Arbodiensten (Foundation for the Management of Certification Scheme for Health and Safety Services, in Dutch).

Support from a health and safety expert

You can also choose to call in a health and safety expert yourself with the customised scheme (maatwerkregeling, in Dutch). You then enter into a contract with at least 1 company doctor to support you in matters of absence management, pre-employment medical examinations, PAGO, and (open) consultation hours.

You may only use the customised scheme if you have written permission from the works council or staff representation. This is not necessary if the customised scheme is set out in the collective labour agreement (CAO). If the customised scheme is not set out in the CAO and your business does not have a works council or staff representation, you must use the safety net scheme.

Basic contract

As an employer, you must enter into an agreement with a health and safety agency or company doctor. The Health and Safety Act specifies that such agreements between health and safety officers and their employers are subject to minimum requirements. This is called the basic contract (in Dutch). The basic contract sets out the agreements for the tasks for which you must engage an occupational health and safety expert. The works council or staff representation must approve the content of the basic contract.

You can get support for additional tasks from a health and safety agency. These agreements are set out in a basic plus contract (in Dutch).

The Netherlands Labour Authority (NLA) checks if you comply with the Working Conditions Act. If you do not have a basic contract, the NLA may fine you.

Right to a second opinion

If an employee is ill, this person has the legal right to consult the company doctor. Is the employee in doubt about the doctor’s opinion? Then the employee has the right to ask for a second opinion from a different company doctor or health and safety agency (in Dutch). The basic contract specifies who are available for this purpose. As an employer you must pay for these expenses.