Newsletter December 2022 – General

by | Dec 6, 2022 | Newsletters

Merry Christmas

COMPANY NEWS

CHRISTMAS SHUTDOWN

Please note that the Wenlock Health & Safety Ltd (WHS) offices will close for the Christmas shut-down at 5 pm on Thursday, 22 December 2022 and will re-open at 8 am on Tuesday 3 January 2023.

May we take this opportunity to wish all our clients a very happy and peaceful Christmas and thank you all for your valued custom throughout 2022. We look forward to continuing to assist towards a safer and healthier working environment through the coming year.

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 relevant information 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 our other courses available; the full range is also detailed on our website: https://wenlockhealthandsafety.co.uk/

FIRST AID

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

Dates:

  • 19 December 2022 (Monday) fully booked but a waiting list is operated
  • 23 January 2023 (Monday) fully booked but a waiting list is operated
  • 15 February 2023 (Wednesday)
  • 22 March 2023 (Wednesday)
  • 24 April 2023 (Monday)

24 May 2023 (Wednesday)

Cost: £85 + VAT per person

MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID

1-day Mental Health First-Aid course; aimed at managers and supervisors, this course provides learners with the knowledge to recognise a range of mental health conditions, how to start a supportive conversation, and when and how to signpost a person to seek appropriate professional help. Demand is always high, so book places as soon as possible to avoid disappointment:

Dates: 17 February 2023 (Friday)

Cost: £85 + VAT per person

IOSH MANAGING SAFELY

3-day IOSH Managing Safely course

Duration: 3 consecutive days
Dates: 28 February, 1 & 2 March 2023 (Tuesday – Thursday)

Cost: £395 + VAT per person

AWARDS

It’s the time of year again when we give Wenlock Health & Safety Awards to deserving clients whose efforts towards the safety, health and well-being of their employees (and others) have stood out as noteworthy during the previous 12 months.

We have great pleasure in presenting two awards, both for ‘Commitment to Safety’, to the following winners:

  • Morris Property Ltd based in Shrewsbury.
    Morris Property Ltd has worked closely with WHS since 2014 to establish workable and effective health & safety systems, from management downwards, and these have now become firmly entrenched into their daily routines. Morris is also exemplary in allowing WHS, as their advisors, to both monitor site safety and meet with management on a very regular basis to identify where improvements can still be made.
  • Stiltz Ltd of Kingswinford.
    Stilz Ltd installs passenger lifts within the domestic environment and has demonstrated an exemplary approach to ensuring the health & safety of, not only its own employees, but the public within the properties during the adaptions – and this can be extremely challenging sometimes, as you can imagine!

So thank you from all of us here at WHS, and hearty congratulations to both Morris Property Ltd and Stiltz!

N.B.

Clients often ask us why they have not received an award despite, as they claim, having a sound safety culture. Usually the answer is simple – if we don’t see you through the year, we can’t verify that safety culture. You will recall from your training (and the HSE guidance we provide) that it is a legal duty for all businesses to monitor health & safety within their premises and/or work environments. Therefore, WHS clients should all be working with us to visit and inspect their workplaces and, by doing so, verify the soundness of their health & safety systems. So, with an eye to winning one of the 2023 WHS awards, do make sure that you carry out your legal duties and allow us to visit as well as train your workforce and assist in establishing those legally required systems.

HSE NEWS

HSE ACCIDENT STATISTICS

The HSE has just published the confirmed fatality statistics for the past year, 2021-22. 123 workers were killed in UK industry during this period, a very welcome reduction of 22 (16%) over the previous year.

  • 24% of these fatalities were still due to work at height.
  • 24% were workers aged 60 or over whilst they only represent 11% of the workforce
  • 80 members of the public were also killed as a result of work-related accidents
  • However, in the manufacturing sector, there were 22 fatal injuries, a very unwelcome increase of 3 from the previous year (16%).

The current report can be seen in full on: https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/pdf/fatalinjuries.pdf
It still doesn’t make for comfortable reading.

RISK REDUCTION THROUGH DESIGN AWARDS

In line with the HSE’s campaign to reduce the need for manual handling and thereby helping to safeguard the long-term health of workers throughout UK industry, the HSE is currently asking for nominations for the 2022/23 Risk-reduction Through Design Awards.

‘Safety through design’ is contained within most health & safety regulations these days and needs to be encouraged and rewarded. So, if you know of any designer or company who has used innovative means and made a real impact on reducing manual handling, do let the HSE know; go to:
https://bit.ly/3AmLuKN

HSE CAMPAIGN – DUSTS

As highlighted in the newsletter on many occasions before, the HSE continues to focus on control of dusts in its campaign to improve the health of workers (particularly in workshops and on site). A great number of enforcement notices have been issued to date during 2022 for poor dust controls, many resulting in prosecutions. The HSE has shared some of its photos, below. Which of the following photos are bad practice and which are good? If you’re not sure of the answers, please ring WHS urgently for advice!!!!

FACE FIT TESTING

And a topical reminder that the wearing of dust masks must be:

  • Viewed as a ‘last resort’ only; the first choice always is to prevent dusts being produced and dust masks used as a secondary precaution only
  • Subject to regular ‘face-fit testing’ to ensure the mask is doing its job properly and preventing the wearer inhaling any dusts at all. To emphasise the point (yet again!), the HSE has issued the following bulletin:

As an employer, you’re required by law to protect your employees, and others, from harm.

To meet this requirement, you will need to complete a risk assessment to assess the risks posed by your work practices and implement identified control measures.

Where your risk assessment identified the need for tight-fitting RPE to protect against the inhalation of hazardous substances in workplace air, it is your responsibility to ensure that the RPE will protect the wearer.

The Approved Code of Practice for the Control of substances hazardous to health regulations 2002 requires that tight fitting RPE should be face fit tested by a competent individual as part of the selection process and to ensure there is an adequate seal between the selected RPE and the wearer’s face.

Face fit testing is important because if the RPE doesn’t fit correctly, the protection provided to the wearer will be greatly reduced and may lead to ill health or even put the RPE wearer’s life in danger.

MENTAL HEALTH

In line with a further campaign, this time aimed at raising awareness and reducing stress in the workplace, the HSE has produced a Stress Indicator Tool which can be found, along with explanatory guidance, on:

Free Stress Indicator Tool (hse.gov.uk)
or
https://books.hse.gov.uk/article/654091/Stress-Indicator-Tool/Free-Stress-Indicator-Tool

A useful tool but you need to note that it is only free to businesses of less than 50 employees and that you can only tap into it once per year, so you do need to prepare beforehand and ensure you use it at an optimum and meaningful point.

MOVING & HANDLING of MATERIALS

As we have highlighted previously, the HSE is now moving on from the monitoring of manual handling risk avoidance to focus specifically on how companies move and handle materials.

To this end, the HSE have issued a series of podcasts entitled ‘Your Health, Your Future’, the latest of which can be heard on: https://bit.ly/3OxaW6i This podcast includes, not only reminders of legal responsibilities, but also sensible control measures. A valuable resource along with multiple others all available free of charge on the HSE website: www.hse.gov.org

PROTECTION of VULNERABLE PEOPLE

According to the HSE, young people are more likely to have an accident within the first 6 months of their employment than any time during the rest of their working life because they will be facing many unfamiliar situations and lack the experience and maturity to realise the consequences when something goes wrong. Hence, it’s been a legal requirement since 1997 for every employee* under the age of 18 to be furnished with a full risk assessment carried out for the tasks allocated and for certain restrictions to apply (hours and types of work) as a safeguard; refer to your WHS health & safety pack for details and a suggested template.

* Do note that ‘an employee’ can be paid or unpaid, engaged by contract (etc) or in a volunteering capacity, etc – basically any person engaged in whatever form to carry out work for the employer.

The HSE has recently issued a bulletin to draw attention to the issues:

When you employ young people under the age of 18, you have the same responsibilities for their health, safety and welfare as you do for other workers.

This applies whether they are:
• a worker
• on work experience
• an apprentice
Employers can find out more advice at our website.

There is also specific guidance for the following groups:
• young workers
• parents and carers
• schools and colleagues
• work experience organisers

Visit our website to find out more about protecting young people at work: https://bit.ly/3GWrwL4

AND FINALLY

Work at height
As always, we begin with work at height….
What % of construction fatalities are due to work at height? 24%!! See HSE statistics above

  • Davis Industrial Roofing Ltd was fined a total of over £32,500 and director, Melvyn Davis, given an 8-week suspended sentence and ordered to undertake 15 days of rehabilitation activity after a worker fell 12 metres to his death through a skylight. The company was carrying out repair work to 300 damaged skylights on a warehouse roof but had failed to provide adequate fall prevention or arrest systems. Davis had written totally inadequate riks assessments and regularly visited site to monitor the work, so was viewed as totally liable for the breaches.
  • MH Costa ConstructionLtd was fined a total of almost £115,000 after a worker fell 3 metres from a flat roof, resulting in serious head injuries and a 6-week coma. The victim was working on a flat roof and fell through an opening which had been created for a skylight but was only covered with loose planks. No risk assessment had been carried out and no fall prevention measures established. The HSE also found other areas of the site where falls were likely and multiple other health & safety breaches.
  • Arnold Laver & Co Ltd was fined a total of almost £420,000 after a driver was killed whilst unloading from a flatbed trailer. The victim had slung a load to the vehicle-mounted crane but, whilst operating the crane by remote control from the flatbed, he was struck and knocked from the vehicle. No fall prevention measures had been established, neither had the driver been properly trained into the safe operation of the crane.

Yet another reminder that the Work at Height Regs apply to ALL industries and ALL situations where falls resulting in harm may possibly occur.

Asbestos

  • Eddie Stobart Ltd was fined a total of over £142,000 after staff were exposed to asbestos during construction work at one of its depots. Significant ground disturbance was necessary, including unearthing old buildings and basement cavities, resulting in large amounts of dusts being emitted from the rubble; the HSE found that significant amounts of asbestos fibres were contained within the dusts. No pre-construction or asbestos survey had been carried out on the area in question, neither had work been halted once it was realised that old underground structures were being disturbed.

It is a common occurrence that businesses fail to commission asbestos surveys for either below-ground structures or areas where the removal of previous buildings may have resulted in debris being mixed with, or buried, in the ground. Below ground is equally as important as above ground – so make sure you do your homework beforehand. And this applies to clients engaging contractors as much as to contractors themselves.

  • Park View Academy was fined a total of almost £8,000 and its contractor, TW Steam & Heating Services Ltd, a total of almost £7,000 after asbestos ceiling tiles were disturbed during refurbishment; neither had consulted the school’s asbestos management system.

Vehicle & plant safety

  • Two companies, galvaniser Joseph Ash Ltd and livestock handling equipment producer LM Bateman & Co. Ltd, were fined totals of almost £257,000 and over £136,000 respectively after an HGV driver was fatally crushed whilst unstrapping a pack of steel gates during delivery. The HSE found that arrangements for restraining the load were inadequate to prevent the gates falling 3 metres onto the victim.
  • Three companies, Segro Administration Ltd, Airworld Airlines Ltd and Unilode Aviation Solutions Ltd, were fined totals of almost £338,000, £138,000 and £121,000 after an HGV driver was seriously injured by a reversing HGV at a warehouse beside Heathrow; the victim was trapped and crushed between the HGV and a forklift truck.

Workplace transport incidents cause an average of 50 fatalities a year in the UK; a further 5,000 result in serious injury. A very poor record

Never ignore HSE enforcement!

  • S&S Quality Building Contractors Ltd was fined a total of almost £637,000 and its director, Shlomo Pines, fined £4,200 and ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid community work after the company had failed to implement recommendations from previous HSE and Fire Service interventions on a number of sites. High risks included fire – with the added, and very real risk to workers, as they were allowed to sleep overnight on site!

Plan & manage the work – whatever the circumstances!

  • Kent County Surfacing Ltd was fined a total of over £17,000 after a worker was engulfed in flames from a site bonfire. A co-worker had poured petrol on the bonfire (something that NOBODY should ever do, at work or at home) and the victim had been unaware of this when he lit it. He suffered serious burns to his torso and required skin grafts to his hands.

Vibration

  • Powys Teaching Health Board was fined a total of over £165,500 after 3 employees developed HAVS. The Board required employees to regularly use strimmers, lawn mowers and hedge cutters but had totally failed to assess risks, limit and/or monitor usage (and therefore vibration exposure periods) and provide appropriate instruction, all despite repeated requests from its own occupational health department to carry out risk assessment. All this from a health board!!
  • Powys Teaching Health Board was fined a total of over £165,500 after 3 employees developed HAVS. The Board required employees to regularly use strimmers, lawn mowers and hedge cutters but had totally failed to assess risks, limit and/or monitor usage (and therefore vibration exposure periods) and provide appropriate instruction, all despite repeated requests from its own occupational health department to carry out risk assessment. All this from a health board!!

 

MAY WE WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND
VERY SAFE CHRISTMAS AND 2023

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