Welcome to 2025 – A new year, a new portal

Like many businesses, we are extremely proud of our amazing team and what we achieved in 2024. As always, we have worked so hard to support our customers and ensure continued high level delivery of training courses and consultancy. Our team have yet again overcome whatever challenges they have faced. It’s fair to say that 2024 was still challenging for many including factors such as the cost of living crisis.

We now draw our attention to 2025, our 25 Year Anniversary. And what a fantastic year it’s looking to be….

Due to continuing high demand, we are currently recruiting for additional trainers. Check out our vacancies page if you are interested in joining our fantastic team.

And then there is our fantastic new portal. We’ve been working hard on this for a few years now and are thrilled it has finally come to fruition. We also recruited more staff to help support the portal’s development – our First Aid Training Booking and Management Portal and Health and Safety Management Portal

Our portal is designed to address the most common pain points in health and safety management, giving you a powerful platform that takes care of the heavy lifting for you. It will be the must-have tool for your business and can provide (but not limited to) the following areas:

1. Automated Risk Assessments – with step-by-step templates that guide you through the risk assessment process.
2. Task Management and Escalation – The portal provides a real-time task management system where you can assign tasks related to health and safety, such as inspections, equipment checks, or repairs.
3. Equipment Logging and Inspection Tracking – Keeping track of safety-critical equipment is essential, but it can quickly become unmanageable if you’re doing it manually. Never miss an inspection date again.
4. Comprehensive Reporting for Audits – with the Acorn portal, you can generate detailed reports at the click of a button.

So, what makes this portal a game-changer for health and safety managers and business owners?

1. Reduce Risk – By automating risk assessments, tracking equipment inspections, and escalating overdue tasks, the portal helps you ensure that your workplace stays safe reducing the risk of accidents, injuries, and non-compliance with health and safety regulations.
2. Save Time and Stay Organised – Manual tracking of health and safety tasks, equipment, and inspections is not only time-consuming but also prone to mistakes. Our portal automates these processes, giving you back valuable time to focus on other important tasks. Plus, with everything in one central system, you can easily stay organised and ensure nothing gets overlooked.
3. Full Accountability and Control – The Acorn Portal provides a full overview of every task, inspection, and risk assessment. You’ll know exactly what’s happening across your organisation, who’s responsible for each task, and when it was completed.

Whether you’re booking courses, tracking delegate progress, or ensuring certifications remain up to date, this portal offers a seamless solution to help you stay on top of it all: a revolutionary solution designed to take the stress out of training and compliance management.

Imagine a platform that automates reminders for critical deadlines, centralises all your health and safety documentation, and provides real-time insights into your training and compliance status. With Acorn’s portal, you can focus on what really matters: creating a safe and legally compliant workplace without the hassle of manual tracking.

Have you thought about your business’ new year resolutions? In particular, some resolutions regarding your health and safety practices and wellbeing? Like using a new portal to ensure it’s all well managed?

Why not take a fresh look at your overall health and safety practices and managing staff wellbeing. However, it’s not only wellbeing that needs to be considered this year.

We have devised a brief list of ‘New Years’ resolutions for businesses: small steps that can improve health, safety and welfare at work and help take away some of those everyday stresses. Pick a few and stick to them:

• Improve yours and your staff’s Mental Health – We all have colleagues who will need support with the cost of living crisis which has created increased anxiety and stress.
• Manage your business debt – money plays a huge part in personal wellbeing. Look at your outgoings and see if there’s anything that can be sensibly reduced without compromising on safety and quality.
• Try something new each month– even if it’s simply buying your coffee from another supplier on your way to work, try supporting the small local businesses.
• Spend extra time outside – fresh air has proven health benefits. Don’t take your lunch at your desk. Go for a walk, even if it’s just around the building
•  Be a role model – inspire your staff to have a healthy work ethic. Work at a standard pace and sensible hours, you can’t do it all, as much as we all think we can
• Hold regular team meetings/brainstorming sessions – getting other points of view and opinions can be really helpful in seeing things through non tinted -glasses.
• Test your fire alarms every week and check all extinguishers. Practice an evacuation drill and check the emergency lighting
• Check Health and Safety signage for damage and fading
• If applicable, check all PPE – Personal Protective Equipment
• Risk assessments – It’s worth reviewing your risk assessments if you haven’t done so already (more info in our Tip of the Month feature below)
• Review and/or update your Health & Safety policies. 
• Involve all employees in all things health and safety related and take any feedback seriously.
• Check the first aid kit once a month (is everything in date?)
• Take a break from PC monitors and undertake a different task to give your eyes a rest every hour.
• Have a glass or bottle of fresh water on your desk. Aim for at least 2 litres per day
• De-clutter your work area; clear desk, clear mind. Remove those spare shoes from under your desk
• If you see something that is broken or needs fixing; report it
• Keep up to date with legislation On the other hand, talk to our consultants!
• Finally, review/check current qualifications for expiry and identify any new training requirements (With over 60 different courses including a range of accredited programmes, bespoke courses and e-learning we have the right course for you and your staff)

Thank you to our customers for your continued support in 2024 and well done on everything you and your colleagues have achieved last year.  We very much appreciate all of your loyalty and commitment over the year. We are here to support, advise and assist in any way we can.

If you are interested in finding out more about what Acorn Health and Safety can do for your business, please contact us

Happy New Year!