Health & Safety and The Olympic Games

Think of Health & Safety and The Olympic Games and you probably conjure up an image of all the arena building, transportation links and accommodation projects  that are being carried out in London and other venues across the country.   But how about the likes of you, me and the thousands of other sporting enthusiasts, how safe will we be?

I’m certain there will be a high level of safety at all of the venues, but that level needs to be maintained everywhere else, including the public services industries such as hotels, guest houses, restaurants and entertainment suppliers.  Now is the time to get our health and safety fitness regime under way.

Management areas such as food preparation hygiene, fire safety and electrical testing; both building and portable appliance should be high on on our training schedules.  With the London Olympic Games under two years away, now is the time for businesses to put systems into place so they are as ready as the athletes come 2012.  Local health & safety and environmental departments are sure to be on their toes as the Games approach, checking on safety standards within the service industries so the last thing any business would want is to stumble before even getting to the starting blocks.

Lets make this a Gold Medal bonanza event for health and safety as well as for Team GB, it’s too great an opportunity to miss out on both business and safety wise.

Health and Safety Management Essential Questions

Health and Safety Management Essential Questions – Here are the questions that every business owner/manager should be asking to check that their business is managing Health and Safety correctly. Your answers will give you an indication about what your business needs to do next, and of course if you answer ‘No’ to any of them contact me, because you urgently need to take appropriate action to put matters right!

Managing for health and safety questions:

• Have you identified all of your risks?
• Have you assessed those risks?
• Have you implemented systems to control those risks?
• Do you monitor those systems to ensure that they are working?
• Do you monitor your staff to make sure that they are working to those systems?
• Do you provide the tools and equipment for your staff to work safely with?
• Do you ensure that your staff are trained to use those tools and equipment safely?

Leadership Questions:

• Do you demonstrate your business’s commitment to health and safety?
• Do you recognise and have arrangements to deal with the real risks the people in your business face?
• Do you really know what is happening in the workplace; what checks are carried out to tell you what’s happening?
• How often is there a management level review to learn from your past performance and plan for the future?

Competence Questions

• Do you know that everyone has the right training to do their job safely and prevent any health problems?
• Have you or your managers and supervisors the right knowledge and experience to be responsible for health and safety
• Have you got the right health and safety advice (competent) for your company?
• Have I asked them if their tasks are difficult to do safely?

Worker Involvement

• Do you ask your staff what health and safety needs improving and if they have all they need to do the job safely?
• Do you take into account your employees views when there are changes in the workplace that might impact on health and safety and on arrangements for competent advice?
• Do you have suitable arrangements in place for consulting your employees, either directly or through their managers/supervisors?

Health Questions:

• Do you have an occupational health problem in your business and have you taken steps to prevent ill health in your workforce?
• Do your workers know what health risks there are in your business and how they could affect them?

Say YES to all of these questions and more, by contacting me today for your Free informal consultation.

Why Do People Ignore First Aid At Work?

I often come across people during the course of my work and in everyday conversations who seem to ignore getting First Aid qualifications and see them as just another piece of legislation to comply with – why?

To my mind knowledge of even the very basic First Aid techniques is a must for everyone and should be taught in schools at an early age.  Lets face it, we humans are clumsy objects and can manage to hurt ourselves in even the safest of environments so doesn’t it make sense to know how to treat injuries properly whether they may occur at home (especially in the garden or when doing DIY) or in the workplace?

There are so many organisations that give First Aid training at very reasonable costs, especially when you consider it help you to save the life of a loved one let alone work colleagues.  I personally always recommend the St John Ambulance who cover a range of training for different needs as well as on other Health & Safety topics.

So if you’re an employee and your employer provides First Aid training why not take advantage of it, and if you’re an employer why not help to protect your employees both at work and at home.  Don’t look at it as a regulation to be adhered to, look at it as a practical and common sense approach to life!

For more information on First Aid at Work check out the information on the St John Ambulance and Heath & Safety Executive websites.  If you are based in the Bournemouth and Poole area and would like some help and advice regarding First Aid and other H&S related topics for your business visit my website at www.healthandsafetyadvice.net and then give me a call.

Why The Media Needs To Carry Out A Risk Assessment!

It never ceases to amaze me in these crazy times how people, some supposedly well educated and intelligent, continue to spread and encourage false statements regarding Health & Safety.  These people, mainly from the media who probably have no qualifications in Health & Safety matters but hold degrees in sensationalism rather that journalism appear to be quite happy to earn a living by spreading fear and frustration among businesses and the general public alike.  In my opinion these people are more of a danger than the risks they talk about!  So I recommend that they reassess (if in deed they have ever carried one out in the first place) their code of practice and start reporting the facts about Health & Safety matters.

The Health & Safety Executive seems to be spending more of its valuable time having to respond and correct these myths and falsehoods instead of doing the work it is designated to do – help to protect peoples health by simple, practicable and sensible means.  Here are a couple of recent statements they have been forced to issue ..

HSE Responds to Portsmouth News letters page – “Left in utter despair by school activity day” 29 July 2010

Dear Sir,

Re: J Hawkins Letter: “Left in utter despair by school activity day” – 28 July 2010

I am saddened to read J Hawkins’ letter of 28th July, claiming schools can no longer have a sack race at their sports days, or children throw overarm, because of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

HSE does not ban sack races, or any competition in school. We support and encourage children to get involved in outdoor physical activity, as it is good for their health and development.

We focus on health and safety and the practical steps that protect people from real risks.  We do not want to stop members of the public from living and enjoying their everyday lives. I can assure your readers that all children can happily go about competing in school sports events, just like in the old days, and if they are told otherwise they should challenge it.

Yours faithfully,

Heather Bryant – HSE Regional Director for HSE South East

and ….

HSE responds to “Fish Out the Plastic Bags” reader’s letter (Express and Echo) – 29 July 2010

Dear Editor,

Re: “Fish Out the Plastic Bags” (letter by Alan Jones), Express and Echo 28 June 2010

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) would like to point out that we do not get involved in decision making on how local authorities or volunteers go about their business on a daily basis or hinder them from carrying out their duties.

We would not in any way want to stop “someone with waders…” from clearing the rubbish bags in the River Exe flood relief channel or “getting in a little boat…to paddle up and down and get it looking ship shape…” HSE promotes a commonsense approach to risk so simple measures to avoid injuries are taken.

Yours faithfully,

Terry Rose – Regional Director, South West Health and Safety Executive

My pledge to the media is that I won’t write any more disparaging blog posts about you if you stop misrepresenting Health & Safety issues and spreading rumours that are stopping people from enjoying their lives.

Portable Appliance Testing (PAT testing)

From experience the testing of portable electrical appliances is often an area that gets neglected because there are so many myths about it or it just gets stuck of the ‘things to do’ list.  Yet when you think about it electricity is probably one of the most dangerous things we all encounter during our home and working lives.  So I am pleased to say that a PAT testing service has now been added to my portfolio over at Health and Safety Advice.net.

It would take me far too long to explain everything you need to know about portable appliance testing as the requirements differ from trade to trade and business to business, so the best thing for me to do here is to point you in the right direction to get the relevant information suitable for you. Here are a couple of HSE links that should help ….

Simple precautions – Work using electrically powered equipment.

Electrical Safety and You – Pdf Leaflet.

Of course if you’re lucky enough to live in Bournemouth or Poole I can now help you solve any PAT problems you may have.

Life Saving Work

I recently came across this article in the Government Business Magazine website   (it pays to poke your nose around, never know what you might find!) which I think is worth publishing again here in full.  It really underlines the message that Judith Hackitt, the Chair of the Health & Safety Executive was saying and I reported on in my previous post Focusing On Real Risks Not Trivia. So here it is ….

Life Saving Work

Challenging perceptions – what does health and safety really mean?

What do you think of when you hear the words health and safety? Is it the protection of workers and the public, or the ‘elf and safety gone mad’ stories that are so prevalent in the media?

‘Elf n safety’ has become a popular and easy to hide behind excuse for every form of risk aversion. The banning of pancake races, hanging baskets, and seasonal decorations and lights on grounds of ‘elf n safety,’ which in reality may be down to concerns over being sued or even plain laziness, are doing enormous damage to the really important – literally life saving work – which lies at the heart of the real health and safety agenda.

But what does health and safety really mean? Does it simply mean fulfilling your legal responsibilities as an employer or as a regulator?

Real risks
Health and safety means much more than that. It can help local and central government target real risks, which can not only benefit businesses but also wider communities, helping make them healthier and safer. Reducing sickness absence from injury and ill health caused, or made worse, by work means better delivery of public services.

When people are exposed to unacceptable work-related risks, their physical and mental health is likely to suffer. This places additional demands on the local economy, services such as healthcare, the police, social care and other support services.

In 2008/9 in Great Britain 180 workers were killed at work and 134,914 other injuries to workers reported. In the same period, 94 members of the public were fatally injured due to work related incidents and 20,709 members of the public injured and taken directly to hospital.

Each year thousands of people die from work-related disease and in 2008/9, 1.2 million people were suffering from an illness they believe to be caused or made worse by their current or past work. The emotional and financial toll to families, friends and communities is enormous.

We cannot put a cost on the emotional toll but we can see the impact on the economy. Around 29 million working days were lost in 2008/9 due to the consequences of accidents at work and work-related health. Looking at the finances, it is estimated that the annual cost to society of work-related accidents and ill-health is a staggering £20 billion (approximately 2 per cent of GDP). In today’s economic climate can we really afford this? Can you afford this?

Great Britain has one of the best health and safety records in the world. However, although the rates of death, injury and work-related ill health have declined for most of the past 35 years, today’s headline figures indicate that the combined incidence of injury and ill health in Great Britain is much the same now as it was five years ago.

Whilst HSE and LAs as regulators have a major role to play to bring about improvements in health and safety performance, there is a need for everyone to work together to reduce the incidence of injuries and ill health in the workplace. For that to become a reality, everyone has to understand the role they have and become better at managing their individual responsibilities.

Strategy & leadership
In June 2009 HSE launched its new strategy ’The Health and Safety of Great Britain – be part of the solution’. The strategy was developed in consultation with local authorities, employers, employees and their representatives. It recognises and addresses the many stakeholders who have a role in maintaining and improving health and safety standards. The Health and Safety at Work etc Act established a simple and enduring principle that those who create risk are best placed to manage it.

First and foremost is leadership. Health and safety must start from the top of every organisation, whatever its size. HSE and LAs provide support to businesses in helping them understand and manage their legal duties. Ultimately we are working to help sustain an innovative, technological and progressive economy, with prosperous and safe workplaces.

Our mission is to prevent death, injury and ill health of those at work and those affected by work activities. We work together using a risk-based approach to targeting our interventions to deliver national, regional and local priorities. We also have a responsibility to dispel the myths by encouraging a sensible approach to public safety issues.

Safer communities
An initiative launched in 2005 by Salford City Council, Bury Metropolitan Borough Council and Greater Manchester Police focused on raising awareness of workplace violence and improving standards of security and safety, particularly in retail.

After the success of this initiative it was rolled out across Greater Manchester and many LAs across the country have their own projects to reduce work-related violence. For example, more recently, Westminster City Council worked with the Metropolitan Police Service and major coffee store chains to reduce crime in coffee stores and provide a safer environment for staff at work and for customers.

The overall outcome is reducing levels of crime and a reduction in anti-social behaviour meaning that people feel safer in their neighbourhood

Healthier communities
There are an estimated 8,000 work-related cancer deaths per year of which about half are due to past exposure of asbestos. Asbestos exposure is a significant health risk among tradesmen, it is vital to make them aware of the dangers. Hull Environmental Health worked with Hull College Construction School and developed a programme of asbestos awareness seminars for joinery, bricklaying, plumbing and electrical students

In 2010/11 many LAs are planning to promote the need for management arrangements to ensure that under 18s do not use sun beds and that coin operated salons are supervised by trained staff. By raising awareness and health and safety management we can reduce the incidence of work-related diseases, leading to lower mortality rates and hospital admissions.

End of Article

Interesting reading I think you’ll agree!  If you want to check out what else may be of interest to you on the Government Business Magazine website you can do so by using this link.  In the meantime if you are in the Bournemouth and Poole region of Dorset and need some assistance with health & safety then visit my main website at www.healthandsafetyadvice.net

“Focusing On Real Risks, Not Trivia,” – Judith Hackitt, Chair of HSE

HSE Chair Judith Hackitt’s speech to IOSH SW Branch, 24 June 2010 is well worth reading if you have any dealings with health and safety or in deed have your own business.

Judith Hackitt - Photograph: Paul Francis

Here is a short extract …

“I have said it many times before: it’s not about paperwork and bureaucracy it’s actually about people. Our purpose is gaining people’s real commitment to adopting the right approach. The battle is for the hearts and minds of everyone in the organisations we work in or interact with in our workplaces.

And that demands leadership. Leadership that means:

• Focusing on real risks, not trivia;
• Recognising that in many organisations today, it is health risks that take a greater toll on the organisation than safety issues;
• Being clear that the reason for doing health and safety is not to comply with rules and legal requirements but because it makes sense and because we all have a moral duty to ourselves, our families, our work colleagues and our friends to go home at the end of the working day unharmed; and
• Acknowledging that for an organisation to be good at health and safety, it has to be well managed from the top to the very bottom. That’s why companies that are really good at health and safety – those for whom it is fully integrated into how they do business – are actually successful in business, as well as in health and safety.

There is no doubt at all that organisations, of all shapes and sizes, need to have access to competent, knowledgeable people who can help them to find their way through the full suite of regulations which apply to them.”

I’m glad to see that Health & Safety is becoming a more open and understandable subject, especially for new SME’s, you can read the rest of the speech here.

If you have a business in the Bournemouth and Poole area of Dorset and would like some assistance with your health and safety policy, risk assessments, or simply want some health and safety advice please get in touch.  You will find my contact details and more information at www.healthandsafetyadvice.net

Spending on Health and Safety is an Investment not a Cost

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work have an interesting article on their website which I think is important for every business owner to be aware of during the current economic climate, so I have copied it here to share with you all.

2009 Annual Report: spending on health and safety is an investment not a cost

“Spending on workplace health and safety should be seen as an investment and not a cost”, according to the Director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). Along with the publication of the Agency’s Annual Report for 2009, Jukka Takala warned against organisations “abandoning long term benefits for short term gains, by reducing their health and safety budgets in difficult times. With 80% of European managers reporting workplace accidents as the main concern, we cannot afford to make cuts in workplace health and safety.”

The 2009 Annual Report acknowledges that the year was a difficult one throughout Europe, with many economies struggling to emerge from recession, and with unemployment rates rising. EU-OSHA has seen increases in many of the health and safety problems that affect European workers, as they have to absorb the work previously done by workers who have been made redundant, and as they suffer from greater stress. In fact, findings from the recent ESENER survey show that 52% of managers in Europe think that time pressure contributes to psychosocial risks in their company. Other influencing factors are job insecurity (26%) and long working hours (21%).

Workers are also facing the growing risk that long-term absence from work will result in them never getting back into employment. According to Jukka Takala, ”the more enlightened employers have been introducing more part-time work and job rotation, to try to avoid redundancies among their workforce while still reducing their wage bills – they realise that retaining their experienced staff is an investment for the next upturn.”

Against the background of economic uncertainty, EU-OSHA has continued to emphasise the importance of health and safety for successful organisations. Main projects in 2009 include:

• The European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER), which provides real-time data from organisations around Europe on the work that they are doing to tackle occupational safety and health risks, and especially psychosocial risks. Full results are now available at www.esener.eu

• The two-day summit that brought to a close EU-OSHA’s campaign on Risk Assessment (which is the cornerstone of health and safety management). EU-OSHA’s two-year Healthy Workplaces Campaigns are now the largest of their kind in the world.

• A pan-European opinion poll on occupational safety and health, aiming to find out what European workers think about their working conditions. Results are available on the EU-OSHA website at http://osha.europa.eu/en/statistics/eu-poll

• A Europe-wide photography competition to promote health and safety at work, which received over 1,600 entries, and

• EU-OSHA’s support for the Healthy Workplaces Film Award at the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film.

Looking ahead, much of the Agency’s work will be focused on organising the Healthy Workplaces Campaign on Safe Maintenance, which will continue into 2011.

I think you will agree that the article was well worth reading and it has hopefully made many of you realize that Health and Safety really is an investment and should be treated as such.  If you have a business in the Bournemouth and Poole area of Dorset in the UK why not contact me and find out more about how I can help you with your Health and Safety responsibilities at www.healthandsafetyadvice.net – I could be the investment you’re looking for!

Occupational Health and Safety – Seven Key Elements Your Policy Statement Should Contain

Your companies occupational health and safety policy must include your statement of intent on how you are going to manage, control and apply health and safety in the workplace.  There should be a structure to how you put it together and this article outlines the seven key elements that it should contain.

The occupational health and safety policy statement provides your company and everyone concerned with it from directors to the office cleaner, to third part auditors and inspectors with concise details of the companies objectives and means of achieving, monitoring and maintain them. To ensure this is the case there are seven key elements that you ought to make sure are fully covered in your company’s  policy, this article outlines them for you and should be discussed with your Health and Safety team when putting your policy together and certainly before finalizing the policy and distributing it amongst the staff.

1. To identify any hazards to employees and any third party that may be affected by the work your business is involved in carrying out.
2. To maintain at all times safe and healthy working conditions; including all plant and equipment.
3. To work towards continuous improvements to prevent accidents and any work related illnesses.
4. To give all employees appropriate and adequate training to ensure that they are competent to carry out their tasks safely.
5. To ensure the safe and secure transportation, storage, handling and use of all hazardous substances.
6. To consult with employees on occupational health and safety matters that may affect their well-being and to give them all necessary information, training and supervision.
7. To review and revise the health and safety policy at regular intervals or whenever new procedures or equipment are introduced into the workplace.

It is important also that this policy statement is read and understood by all members of staff and I recommend that it becomes a part of your new employees’ induction training and that they are notified via the company line management of any amendments and revisions.

The amount of information to be included in these seven key elements will depend on the size and type of company you operate; obviously a building contractor will need a far more detailed policy statement and additional documentation than a small office based company.

Finally, the statement should be signed and dated by the highest ranking member of the management team responsible for occupational health and safety which is normally the Managing Director, so that it becomes a powerful document to be held in high regard and authority by everyone within the company.

If you have a small to medium sized business in the Bournemouth and Poole area of Dorset why not visit my website HealthandSafetyAdvice.net and see how I can help you put your Occupational Health and Safety Policy together for you

Occupational Health and Safety – Five Key Elements to a Good Management System

We all know about occupational health and safety but without a well thought out and well implemented management systems being in place a good safety culture will not be developed and thrive.  This article points out five key elements that a good occupational health and safety management system should comprise of.

The five key elements you need to work on are:

Policy.

Organisation.

Planning and Implementation.

Measuring performance.

Reviewing performance and auditing.

Everything else you may do will hang from the structure provide by those five basic elements.

Your health and safety policy should set out your general approach to safety, objectives and the arrangements you have put in place for managing health and safety in your business. It is basically your business document that states who does what, when and how concerning occupational health and safety.

Organisation is about giving responsibility to individuals, groups, department’s, committees etc. to communicate what is in your policy to the rest of the company and to review and revise it as and when the need arises.  It is always good to have a wide mix of people involved in this process from Directors down to shop floor workers so that everyone’s point of views and safety concerns can be heard and considered.

Just like anything else concerning the running of a business occupational health and safety along with the management system needs to be planned.  Planning ahead can prevent safety issues becoming a major issue before they happen.  If you are purchasing anything new whether it be a large piece of machinery or a software program, planning ahead and implementing training sessions, informing the workforce, checking if new safe working codes of practice or personal protective equipment will be required all make up for good planning and implementation.

Monitoring and measuring your safety performance is often overlooked but is a vital piece of the management system.  If you do not know if your system is working or is adequate you are wasting your time and putting yourself and your employees at risk.  Be honest you monitor your business finance, sales and productivity so why not your health and safety performance?

The objectives of reviewing and auditing is to ensure that whatever you have stated in your occupational health and safety policy will be done, it being done and by the people that you stated would do it; and to provide the information needed to enable the appropriate changes to be made if any weaknesses or failings are found.

It is important to remember that these five key elements of, policy, organisation, planning and implementation, measuring performance and reviews and audits work together to form the management system and a failing in one will inevitably cause a knock on effect throughout the system.

If you have a small to medium sized business in the Poole or Bournemouth area of the UK then find out how Steve can help you with your own Occupational Health and Safety Management plan by visiting his website which you will find at www.healthandsafetyadvice.net