Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and success going into the new year! We are wrapping up the year with a few key bits of information that may be beneficial to know before we enter the Christmas break.
Please note: Our office is closed from 25th Dec and will be reopening on 5th Jan. However, we will still be on call for urgent advice and support. If you have any queries/ emergencies during this period, please contact 01582 840098.
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Thank you for supporting us in 2025. We hope we have added value to your sites and look forward to continuing these developments in the new year!
[t] 01582 840 098 [e] info@rightdirections.co.uk [w] www.rightdirections.co.uk
Stay safe this winter
RD Docs
We hope you are all looking after yourselves, keeping warm and taking precautionary measures on the icy roads. For some quick weather-related advice, we’ve pulled together a list of important resources which may be relevant to you.
If there will be young employees under the age of 18 attending the event, we advise discussing with the individuals what their transport arrangements are and then deciding if you need to do anything further. For example, if someone says they are going to walk home as there’s no public transport and they haven’t got anyone to pick them up, then you might want to consider arranging a lift or taxi for them.
Useful resources all available on The Right Place: RD Doc: Driving at Work - Safe Driving RD Doc: Adverse Weather RD Doc: Work-related Social Events (useful for the scenario below)
By law, all employers must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. The law is the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, which came into effect on 26 October 2024. This is linked here if you wish to read into further detail.
Guidance on young workers attending Christmas work parties Following a recent enquiry from a client concerning their responsibilities as an employer to ensure the safety and protection of their under-18 members of staff attending a Christmas team event, we thought it may be useful to share our guidance to help other employers.
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[t] 01582 840 098 [e] info@rightdirections.co.uk [w] www.rightdirections.co.uk
ukactive Guidance Children and Young People in Exercise Facilities On the same subject of supporting young individuals, we would like to inform you that ukactive has released new guidance for Children and Young People in Gym and Group Exercise Facilities, setting out national standardsto ensure safe, inclusive, and effective provision for juniors. You can read the full guidance here.
In line with these updates, we have reviewed and updated our Junior Fitness Procedure, which is now available on The Right Place for your reference. If you have any questions or would like support in meeting the requirements of the new ukactive guidance, please contact your client lead or reach out to our support office on 01582 840098, where a member of our team will be happy to assist you.
New Quest assessors, welcome to the team! We are delighted to welcome the following assessors to the team and hope you have enjoyed your first few weeks/months assessing.
Joined since September 2025: Peter Gilpin Stuart Winslow Mark Byerley Allison Lewis
Whilst we have a few new assessors joining the team, we’d also like to take this opportunity to thank those who have contributed to the Quest scheme for an exceptional number of years and who are now stepping into retirement: Carl Glover Thank you, Carl, for your incredible 17 years of assessing and contributing to the Quest scheme! Carl joined us in December 2008, all the way from the Isle of Mann, so we really appreciate the dedication, expertise, and commitment he has shown over the years. We are sorry to see you go, but wish you all the very best in your retirement.
Jeremy Bourne Also a long-term assessor, Jeremy has been part of the Quest scheme since 2015, reaching a milestone of 10 years assessing! We wish you all the best in your retirement, Jeremy. Thank you sincerely for everything you’ve contributed.
Contact: [t] 01582 840 078 [e] Quest@rightdirections.co.uk
PlatformUpdates
WHAT’S
new
The New Stitch Platform has been launched! Stitch has been totally re-imagined and developed, to bring you a powerful new platform with smarter features, a cleaner interface and a more user-friendly experience. The newly built platform factors in customer feedback with a new back-end structure to speed up processing, meaning Stitch can run a report in seconds rather than minutes. What else can clients expect from the new platform? • A brand-new notification manager, coupled with an upgraded email system • A new risk reduction plan automatically updates the risk assessment when actions are completed, and allows facilities to independently create new actions • Analyse data and hot spots across individual locations and their entire estate to see what the main causes of accidents are.
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Benchmark against national averages, colour-coded for ease of use
To keep our clients fully informed about the new platform ahead of the launch on 8th December, we scheduled a couple of webinar sessions which took place on 25th November and 1st December. If you weren’t able to make either session, the webinar recording can be accessed on the Right Place. The response following the launch has been great, with 750 active users on the platform in the first week alone! Please keep your feedback coming, and if you have any queries, please email stitch@rightdirections.co.uk
Face-to-Face Training Update
TRAINING
update IOSH course refresher periods Following a recent conversation with a client about IOSH training refresher periods, we thought it a good idea to share this information and ease any confusion our audience may have. Do IOSH Managing Safely Training courses have an expiry date? IOSH Managing Safely courses do not have an official expiry date, however they have a recommended refresher of every 3 years. The refresher can be a one-day refresher course. There are a couple of pre-requisites for sitting the one-day refresher. Delegates must have completed Version 5.0 (i.e. completed the current version of the course) and we must verify their certificate using the IOSH link here: Verify an IOSH certificate | IOSH If the delegate holds the qualification from a previous version of the course, then the full three-day course should be completed. Looking for an affordable IOSH course or refresher for your team? We provide: IOSH Working Safely (1 day) Training IOSH Managing Safely (3 day) Training IOSH Managing Safely Refresher (1 day) Training
Please contact: training@rightdirections.co.uk or 01582 840098 to make an enquiry.
Important notice: document retention We are currently building a new RD Dashboard. As part of our data management and system improvements, client information (including audit support day notes, Quest assessments, TAS reports and Learn to Swim reports) will only be held for a 6-year period or for the length of any contractual agreement where this differs. Please ensure you download any reports you wish to keep, as from January 2026 all reports dated pre-2018 will be permanently removed from our servers.
Get in touch for more information and assistance: info@rightdirections.co.uk or 01582 840098.