Film, TV and broadcasting

Information for those involved in film, TV and broadcasting to assist them in complying with their legal duties to eliminate or reduce the risk from their work.

What you should know:

What you must do:

Define responsibilities and duties

Employers are required to have a management system in place to control the risk to employees and others from their work. The industry uses large numbers of independent companies and freelancers and it is sometimes difficult to decide who the employer is. However, in the majority of cases, the employer will be the producer or production company. Help in deciding individual responsibilities can be found in: Health and safety in audio-visual production: Your legal duties.

System for managing health and safety

The size and complexity of management systems for health and safety depend on the size and complexity of the production. General advice on management systems can be found in: Health and safety made simple but – for more complex, hazardous or specialist productions – advice may have to be sourced from a competent outside specialist or consultant. Please note, an employer's legal duty to manage health and safety cannot be delegated to a consultant or to anyone else.

Assess and manage risks

Risk assessment is a fundamental part of managing health and safety and helps you to identify hazards and control the risk they create for those involved in your production. The process requires you to:

For more information, see: Risk management.

Review

You must review and update both the risk assessments you have made and the controls you put in place as work progresses to make sure they are still working. After the production, it is good practice to review the whole system to see whether useful lessons could be learned for the future.

Updated 2022-11-01