Wenlock Health & Safety Celebrates its 20th anniversary!

COMPANY NEWS

We are delighted, and very proud, to be celebrating Wenlock Health & Safety Ltd’s 20th anniversary this month. From our very humble beginnings (just Jackie working from home) we soon blossomed into a well-respected health & safety consultancy with a great reputation that we work hard to keep. Over the years, we have assisted well over 900 businesses, with over 200 currently being annually subscribed.

We extend sincere thanks to all of our customers, particularly for those of you who have remained with us from the early days. We have successfully ridden challenges during the past 20 years, such as the economic ‘crash’ of 2008-9 and more recently the pandemic, and we are now looking forward very much to serving our current and future customers for the next 20 years, and hopefully longer!

TRAINING

All necessary criteria and restrictions will be personally communicated both directly at the time of booking and again through joining instructions ahead of all planned courses. It is vital that these are understood and, particularly for the First Aid and CITB courses, relevant information is clearly passed to candidates.

And do please be sure to inform us ahead of the course date of any candidate who may require assistance in any way, especially with reading or writing; we need advance notice to be able to provide this help.

Please contact Vicki at Wenlock Health & Safety Ltd (WHS) on 01952 885885 or enquiries@wenlockhs.co.uk or vicki@wenlockhs.co.uk to book places.

In addition to those below, please enquire about other courses available, both classroom and non-classroom based; the full range is also detailed on our website: https://wenlockhealthandsafety.co.uk/

MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID

1-day FAA Award in First Aid for Mental Health (Level 2 RQF) providing the knowledge to recognise a range of mental health conditions, start a supportive conversation and assist to seek professional help.

Date: 21 June 2022 (Tuesday)
Cost: £85 + VAT per person

IOSH MANAGING SAFELY

• Full IOSH Managing Safely course

 

Duration: 3 consecutive days
Dates: 9, 10 & 11 May 2022 (Monday – Wednesday)

Cost: £395 + VAT per person

• IOSH Managing Safely Refresher

 

Duration: 1 day
Date: 28 April 2022 (Thursday)

Cost: £165 + VAT per person

FIRST AID

1-day Emergency First-Aid at Work course dates are listed below; Covid-specific controls will still apply for the moment and will be advised within the joining instructions. Demand is always high, so book places as soon as possible to avoid disappointment:

Dates:

24 March 2022 (Thursday) – fully booked
27 April 2022 (Wednesday)
26 May 2022 (Thursday)
27 June 2022 (Monday)
26 July 2022 (Tuesday)
24 August 2022 (Wednesday)

Cost: £85 + VAT per person

CITB COURSES

It must be noted that CITB attendance rules are very strict; they must be understood and are reiterated here:

• CITB specifies that candidates must be available to attend each session within the course; failure to do so may require a repeat course.
• Attendance is absolutely vital once booked; because of CITB rules, we may be forced to cancel a course on that morning if some candidates fail to take part, to the detriment of all candidates.
• Basic refreshments will be available; however, no lunch is provided and candidates are to make their own provision (bring their own or there are shops nearby and a small café on site).

 

Candidates must arrive by 8.15*am for registration; all courses start at 8.30 am and finish at 4.30 pm.

* Please reiterate to all candidates the absolute need to make their way up to the WHS offices and log in immediately upon arrival to avoid being charged for parking.

• Site Management Safety Training Scheme (SMSTS)

 

Duration: 5 days; 1 day per week

Dates:

11, 18, 25 March & 1, 8 April 2022 (Fridays)
29 April & 6, 13, 20 & 27 May 2022 (Friday)
22, 29 June & 6, 13, 20 July 2022 (Wednesday)

Cost: £495 + VAT per person

• Site Management Safety Training Scheme (SMSTS) Refresher

 

Duration: 2 days

Dates:

11 & 12 April 2022 (Monday & Tuesday)
13 & 14 June 2022 (Monday & Tuesday)
15 & 16 August 2022 (Monday & Tuesday)

Cost: £265 + VAT per person (10% discount when booking 2 or more people)

• Site Supervisors Safety Training Scheme (SSSTS)

 

Duration: 2 days

Dates:

28 & 29 March 2022 (Monday & Tuesday)
16 & 17 May 2022 (Monday & Tuesday)
14 & 15 July 2022 (Thursday & Friday)

Cost: £230 + VAT per person (10% discount when booking 2 or more people)

• Site Supervisors Safety Training Scheme (SSSTS) Refresher

 

Duration: 1 day

Dates:

25 April 2022 (Monday)
20 June 2022 (Monday)
17 August 2022 (Wednesday)

Cost: £160 + VAT per person (10% discount when booking 2 or more people)

• CITB 1-Day Health & Safety Awareness

 

Duration: 1 day

Dates:

4 April 2022 (Monday)
10 June 2022 (Friday)
8 August 2022

Cost: £125 + VAT per person (10% discount when booking 2 or more people)

HSE NEWS

COVID-19

The HSE has stated that, although the Government has now ended legally enforceable Covid restrictions, all businesses and personnel should continue to practice a high standard of hygiene and cleaning of the workplace, and adequate ventilation.

Only time will tell if we are out of the woods; therefore, it makes sense to continue with sensible precautions which, after all, should have now become the ‘new normal’ and will most certainly help should we be hit with yet another wave of Covid at some point.

In addition, the HSE reminds all businesses that the requirement for adequate risk assessments, sufficient to encompass ALL hazards potentially encountered in the workplace, is a strict legal requirement – and this will still include Covid.

Updated HSE guidance and advice can be found on: https://bit.ly/3pnCCix

INDUSTRY NEWS

WORK AT HEIGHT – TOWER SAFETY

It’s been law since the Work at Height Reg 2005 that all work at height equipment is subject to frequent inspections and specific records kept, no matter what the industry; the Construction Regs 1996 made the requirements mandatory way before that in our industry. This should not be news to any of our customers as WHS provides appropriate inspection register templates and emphasises the issue in both training and site inspections.

As all contractors who use scaffold towers will know, PASMA has been at the forefront of tower safety for decades, and they continue in their quest to ensure that users are not put at risk. PASMA is now launching an extremely easy system for ensuring the mandatory inspections are carried out both in sufficient detail and at the required frequencies. The system is administered using a mobile app (which doesn’t require network coverage at the point of inspection) and relays the information back to a company’s central data base to enable remote monitoring by busy site and contracts managers. PASMA is using mobiles for the system as they are the one piece of equipment that, inevitably, everyone on site carries with them these days so is much less likely to be overlooked than paper registers, etc.

The app can be used by anyone; it takes the user through the specific steps of standard inspections and logs the results as per the requirements of the Work at Height Regulations. As it feeds back to a central company data base, it provides a comprehensive means by which the user company itself can monitor when inspections have been done, the competence of the person carrying out the inspection (i.e. which type of tower he/she has been trained on) and the results of those inspections – and it will even flag up reminders when inspections are overdue.

It really is a simple app to use …and the good news is that the system is FREE until September, and FREE forever for small companies!

All you need to know can be found on the PASMA website: https://bit.ly/3Mv9dwR

WORK AT HEIGHT – OPEN EDGES

Normally, this prosecution would be at the end of the newsletter; however we need to, yet again, highlight this here as our advisors are still frequently encountering the same illegal and lethal practice on site.

Garry Harbutt, sole director of Night & Day Glaziers Ltd, was prosecuted after his own father, Arthur Harbutt, was killed falling from scaffolding during the refit of a shop unit at a retail park. The scaffolding had no internal edge protection and, when the pair and three others were moving a large glass panel, the victim fell 15 feet from the unprotected edge into the unit.

This is totally inexcusable because, not only has the law required edge protection to ALL open edges since 1996 (as stated above), it’s plain common sense that workers can fall inwards just as easily as they can fall outwards from scaffolding! This case is a sobering lesson – the director lost his own father because of complacency.

RED DIESEL – CHANGES IN THE LAW

This is not a health & safety issue but we felt we had to make sure that all contractors are aware of a major change to the law on the use of red diesel. From 1 April 2022, red diesel can ONLY be used for plant and vehicles in agriculture, horticulture, fish farming, forestry, rail and non-commercial heating.

The Government has stated the change is necessary to meet environmental and air-quality targets. Whatever your thoughts on this premise, it is going to have a massive effect on construction projects, increasing fuel bills astronomically. White diesel has a fuel duty rate of 57.95 pence per litre (ppl); red diesel is entitled to a rebate of 46.81 ppl, the effective duty rate thus being 11.14 ppl. This rebate is being removed, meaning that the price paid ppl on site (etc) will rise by the 46.81 ppl – a massive increase in addition to the huge increases we’re all experiencing right now!

Be warned and be prepared; the Government has promised increased spot checks. Full information can be found on: https://bit.ly/3IkoSwc

SSiP COMPETENCE SCHEMES

You will, no doubt, be familiar with SSiP competence schemes such as CHAS, SMAS, Safe Contractor, etc. Many of these schemes, once certification is successful, provide a short-cut to other schemes, thus saving a lot of time, money and effort when multiple clients require multiple certificates. Our advisors are well-versed on which schemes are partially-transferrable and any additional evidence needed; please let us know which competence SSiP scheme your clients are requiring so that we can advise the best and cheapest approach.

AND FINALLY

Work at height

• Peter Saunders Builders Ltd was prosecuted after a worker fell from a tower scaffold and died of his injuries some months later. The work involved levelling a steel beam that was going on top of a door lintel, using a low-level mobile tower to gain access to the height. However, the workers had only installed one guard rail and, when the victim snagged his sleeve on the top of the tower, that was enough to unbalance him and he fell to the ground.

 

It must be remembered that a fatality can occur at even low levels. As the photograph shows, the fall was only 5 or 6 feet but was enough to kill the worker.

• AJM Services (Midlands) Ltd was fined a total of £56,000 after a worker fell 6 metres to his death through a fragile asbestos roof. No netting or fall prevention measures were in place.

 

N.B. Note that the owner of the building, Pearsons Glass, was also fined a total of almost £87,000 under Section 3 of the Health & Safety at Work Act which places the responsibility on ALL businesses to take care of those not in their employ but affected by their activities. Clearly, the company had failed to warn about the fragility of the roof and ensure that proper precautions were established by the contractor.

• Ian Davey, trading as Exe Fibreglass, was given a 12-month community order, including 80 hours of unpaid work, and ordered to pay costs of £3,000 after an inexperienced worker fell 5.5 metres through a sky-light whilst observing roof-renovation works. Again, no netting or other fall prevention measures had been established; the worker suffered multiple fractures and, again, was lucky to be alive.
• H Cumberbirch & Son Ltd was fined a total of almost £39,000 after two bricklayers eight feet from a makeshift platform when it collapsed. Yet again, the victims were lucky to be alive although both suffered serious injuries.
• Phillip McGinn was given a 13-month suspended prison sentence, 200 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £1,000 costs after a member of the public reported his unsafe roofing practices to the HSE.

 

Believe it or not, McGinn had previously been prosecuted in 2012 for the same offence. He evidently didn’t believe that lightning wouldn’t strike twice!

• Ruttle Plant Hire (Birmingham) Ltd was fined a total of over £68,500 after the HSE found, amongst other breaches, serious failings during roof work to a new facility. Access to height was by means of a cherry picker; however, at times the workers had to climb onto the roof itself and no edge protection had been planned or provided. No accident had occurred thank heavens; the results would have been catastrophic.

 

Asbestos

This first case is absolutely appalling and shows that, even those with the knowledge and competence, are not beyond a willingness to cut corners and break the law.

• Billy Hopwood, director of Ensure Asbestos Management, was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment and disqualified from being a director for 5 years after knowingly putting his employees at risk during a refurbishment. A fellow director, Phillip Hopwood, is awaiting sentence; the company itself was fined £100,000 and is now in liquidation.

 

The company, a previously licensed asbestos removal contractor, was engaged by a department store to carry out an asbestos survey, remove all asbestos-containing materials and then undertake an initial strip out. However, the survey and clearance certificates were found to be fraudulent, the company having deliberately put their own workers (and later building occupants) at risk.

• Both the managing director, Charles Dunn, and a fellow director, Jeremy Mills, of D&M Heritage Ltd were personally fined totals of almost £6,000 and £11,600 respectively after they organised the removal of asbestos insulation board (AIB) by untrained personnel. Despite having been previously warned by a licensed asbestos removal company that panels to the rear of cupboards were broken and likely to be AIB, the directors went ahead, and both the panels and the cupboards were broken up and left in a skip.
• Kieran Lynch was given a 12-month community order, including 100 hours of unpaid work and a 25-day rehabilitation requirement after exposing his domestic client to AIB fibres during an extensive house refurbishment. Despite being warned that the house may contain asbestos, Lynch failed to commission a survey, instructed two untrained employees to remove the boards, then left them in the house for a further 3 months before disposal!

 

Plant – forklifts

• Tudor Stonework Ltd was fined a total of over £6,000 after a worker was struck by a forklift, sustaining serious injuries. The system of work for moving stone required two workers walking in front of the fork-lift to steady the slabs being carried; predictably, the fork-lift ran over the foot of one of the workers, crushing it and severely fracturing his leg.
• Cutting Edge Trading Ltd was fined a total of over £28,000 after a worker was fatally injured by a side-loading lift truck. Whilst unloading pallets from the side of a wagon, the forks and carriage of the lift-truck descended onto the victim who was working beneath it. The company had no safe system of work in place – but surely staying well away from this type of unloading operation (or vice versa) is just common sense?

 

Vibration

• MTL Advanced Ltd was fined a total of over £104,000 after several workers were diagnosed with hand-arm vibration or carpal tunnel syndromes. The company had failed to recognise the risks, pay attention to symptoms when they were declared, limit exposure or establish safe systems. The heavy fine reflects the seriousness of the case.

 

THE LAST LAUGH!

Suchi Chaudhary, a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly, presided over the opening of a prestigious new road in India last December. As is customary, Ms Chaudhary was to smash a coconut on the new road for good luck. However, after several attempts, it was the road that broke, not the coconut!! Questions are being asked!!

WHS is working for you; help us to help you.
Our aim is to keep people safe and to keep your company working.
To contact WHS, ring: 01952-885885