This new body will be put in place to look at complaints of businesses where they feel that the Health and Safety advice they have been given is onerous. If the businesses are unhappy with the advice they receive, in the first instance they will be encouraged to go back to the original Health and safety executive to resolve the issue, but if they are still left disgruntled then the complaint can be raised with the new independent regulatory challenge panel by filling out at online form on the HSE website.

The challenge panel will accept complaints from advice dating back to 30 June 2011 with all findings published on the HSE website.

Should you feel the need to complain, you can now do so, however my advice would be to choose the right health and safety consultants in the first place!

“IFSM secretary general, Bob Docherty, said the institute recognised that the time had come to start moving towards a more professional and competency-based fire risk assessors register.” which will remove the risk to you the consumer.

The new register actually started on the 1st of December 2012, so make sure you know if your supplier meets the standards required to complete your risk assessment and fire safety!

Taking the case of this poor man, who was simply asked to install a sign outside the front gates of his firm, failure to do this effectively has left him scarred for life – literally…

A full risk assessment of the area would have identified the need to check for underground cables (and perhaps relocation of the sign) before the work commenced. This would then lead to the method statement (which is simply a sequence of steps taken to complete a work task in a safe manner.) which would have as the start point “use scanning equipment to check all underground services.”

The worker (who was untrained to do ground work so should actually have been supervised) would at least then have know the correct position for the sign, and also where any underground cables or pipes were running, it would probably have saved him from a very serious injury.

So for every job, no matter how small, make sure it is planned carefully with properly completed risk assessments and attached method statements, that way you are giving the best protection possible to your employees.

‘when a health and safety guy, demonstrating best practice falls from the ladder.’

Whilst he was securely tied onto the ladder, what was the ladder securely tied on to….. hmmm just to demonstrate you really do have to think of everything!

Its really important that you understand the roles and responsibilities when it comes to dealing with asbestos in your school, and whilst we are no experts in the removal of asbestos, we can help to define the actions required to stay compliant and safe.

Everyone knows how important it is to have a completed survey that identifies the presence and location of asbestos, but what then? All organisations must have a plan to manage any asbestos that may exist. The plan should include actions and responsibilities. Critically, the duty of care extends to contractors whose activities may disturb asbestos containing materials. Many businesses do not fully appreciate that it is their responsibility to ensure the safety of visiting contractors rather than simply leaving it to the contractor and this should form an integral part of their safety management system.

Just take a look at this picture which demonstrates what I mean

Aside from the slightly dodgy build (not my area of expertise but nothing looks straight!) here are the problems,

what’s missing:

• Edge protection – the platform is very narrow, it only takes one slip!
• Correctly constructed elevated working platform, this is really held together just with frayed rope and a lot of luck
• Safe means of access / egress (a requirement for any ‘Place of work’ – and this is a place of work).
• PPE (personal protective equipment – minimum hard hat, high-vis vest, protective footwear
• Any form of fall arrest equipment, harness etc.
• ‘RAMS’ (Risk Assessment & Method Statement) – think we can ‘safely’ (excuse the pun) assume this was not done.

Two things make me sad, that the workers are not looked after properly with a total disregard for their well-being, and that my friend had to take a holiday that was more of a work-as-you-tan special offer…

Arguably the one thing we know about stress is that we don’t know much about it.  Or to be more specific, we don’t know the real impact of stress on workers – or anyone else for that matter.  We do know what people claim to be stress, or stress-related issues.   We also know that the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) treats stress very seriously.   We know that employers have a legal duty to assess it and manage it’s adverse health effects on employees, but what are those effects?

In contrast, we do know – for example – that if someone falls from a stepladder and breaks their leg whilst painting the canteen ceiling, there has been a serious workplace injury.  We know its severity, we understand what caused it and we can introduce corrective measures that reduce the chances of recurrence.  But if someone claims to be suffering from stress, is it real or imagined?  What are its causes? Is it work-related or has it got nothing to do with work?  Is the person concerned really suffering or is he or she just throwing a ‘Sickie’ – and possibly a very long one too?

Make no mistake, although invisible, stress can be a very serious, possibly life-threatening condition.  In extreme cases it can contribute to serious illnesses such as heart- disease and cancer.  It can aggravate a pre-existing medical condition.  It can cause suicide.

So how does a business, already operating in a hostile economic environment and challenged by red tape and bureaucracy deal with this unseen, unquantifiable menace?  Well, as a simplified starting point here’s how:

• Employ a specialist.  Stress Management requires real understanding of the issues and a qualified, competent response.
• Decide on a clear strategy involving the identification of workplace ‘Stressors’ and how you will strive to control them.
• Make a commitment to your stakeholders that your strategy will involve balancing negative stress-related issues with a means of harnessing the power of ‘Positive stress’.
• Implement a positive stress-reduction plan that will not only control stress – as the law requires – but will also act as a catalyst to achieve excellence in terms of your organisation’s business aspirations.  Now if you can get that right, it will deliver an enthusiastic, incentivised workforce, a significant commercial advantage, and a modern, radical business ethos………… and by the way, you’ll also be complying with your legal occupational health duties.

Following in the wake of the ludicrous decision by the authorities at Wimbledon to close Henman Hill because of slippery grass, comes another knee-jerk reaction guaranteed once again to bring ‘Elf & Safety’ into disrepute, this involves the school children that were putting themselves ‘at risk’ for wearing skirts that are too short (full article here)

Presumably those responsible also live in Utopia, a place where apparently they also believe that if enough red tape and regulation is introduced they can put a stop to ‘Risk’ once and for all, so we can all get on with a life of total safety and security.

Sadly we will all be at risk for as long as we walk the planet and perhaps young women are more exposed to predators than others, but does anyone seriously believe that the length of school skirts is going to fundamentally change anything?  School children should be encouraged by the entire education process to make good choices and act as responsible citizens but that applies to many aspects of life, not just the clothes they wear.

Education should be about good risk management as much as English and Maths, so let’s teach the kids about how to make good judgement calls, including taking personal responsibility for their health and their safety rather than trying to put a stop to their freedom to do so.

Stories such as this – where employees fall from roofs – are incredibly common, and all too often result in fatal injuries.  Falls are the most common form of serious workplace injury and therefore this is precisely the kind of health and safety breach that is most likely to attract the attention of your local Environmental Health Officer or HSE Inspector.  Whenever work is ‘At height’ it should be subject to a risk assessment, which in turn prompts the question what is ‘At Height?’  The Work at Height Regulations provide the answer.  They define a workplace as being at height ……’if a person can be injured falling from it even if it is at or below ground level’.  
So is this yet another example of ‘Elf ‘n’ safety gone mad?  Perhaps so – but only at first sight.  How can anyone be hurt falling from the ground??!!  Well for a start think about an older style motor vehicle workshop.  Falling into an inspection pit is likely to get the person a fast trip to the local Intensive Care Unit accompanied by blues and twos, petrified family members and a Boss who has realised too late that he has made a serious mistake that may even put him out of business.

What about falling from a chair while changing a light bulb? After all we do it every day…..  A friend of mine did it – and that 10 seconds resulted in 10 months of hospitals, pain, lost income and severe stress for both him and his family.  He sustained a severely torn ligament which required surgery.  The operation resulted in infection and attempts to counter this with antibiotics failed.  The resulting secondary surgical intervention has resulted in further complications and there is no end in sight.  The lesson?  Use a well designed, safe stepladder, and if you are an employer make damn sure your staff do the same, that way you safeguard yourself, your business and your staff.

Oh – and by the way, if you were going onto a roof to fix a leak – don’t!  At least not before you have properly assessed the risks and made absolutely sure that whoever is on the roof is totally safe!

Image via Wikipedia

Where the welfare of children are concerned, especially when they are supposed to be in a completely secure environment, any help given to protect them and keep them safe seems to me to be a jolly good move. Health and safety in schools is one of our specialist areas so we were delighted to read that the classroom risk assessment is being renamed as a ‘classroom checklist’. By providing a simple list that you can just quickly check against removes all the ‘pomp’ of health and safety in an environment that actually requires it the most where our children are concerned, as they can get hurt in a ‘normal’ classroom environment.

The Health and Safety Executive have provided this sensible guide for the teaching and support staff who use the classroom, and its sole aim is to provide a quick 20 minute check list that provides confidence to the staff that sensible precautions are in place for all those that work in that classroom. As not every classroom activity requires a written risk assessment, this check list provides a sensible solution to fill the gap between a full written assessment to comply with the Health and Safety legislation (for example in Science Laboratories) and absolutely nothing at all.

This check list will provide a great baseline to ensure that health and safety in school classrooms meet minimum requirements and it will also provide a really useful resource for the school when they are reviewing the whole risk assessment. It basically identifies the most common areas in a ‘normal’ classroom, for example furniture and fixtures, fire extinguishers and that type of thing. Its not meant to be an exhaustive list, more a helpful prompt to identify where risk may lie.

This aligns with my belief that Health and Safety requires a ‘common-sense’ approach and nothing more!

If you want to download the checklist you can, you’ll find it here or alternatively if you think we can help you’ve only got to pick up the phone.