COMPANY NEWS
TRAINING – NEW UKATA CAT B ASBESTOS COURSE
In response to demand, we are now offering in-house UKATA Category B training courses, designed to equip contractors, electricians, gas engineers, kitchen fitters, repair/maintenance workers and other trades who may undertake work in the domestic field or where asbestos survey information may not be available and where the very limited nature of the work involved may not warrant the expense of a full survey (e.g. drilling holes for light fittings). In those circumstances, this training allows your personnel to carry out their tasks using HSE-approved techniques with no risk to either themselves or the occupiers.
This is an important inclusion in your portfolio of training and ensures that your personnel act according to the law, even in domestics; the course takes them through simple and easy solutions to potentially awkward and costly problems.
As the HSE’s asbestos campaign hots up (refer to HSE section), don’t get caught out!! A reminder that nobody should be disturbing ‘non-licensed’ asbestos without this training.
Delegates must have a UKATA Cat A certificate dated within the last 6 months in order to attend Cat B. Because of this stipulation, we are running the UKATA Cat A course beforehand on the same day and, if your candidates need to complete both A & B on the same day, there is a discounted rate of £160pp for both courses.
- UKATA Cat A Asbestos Awareness
Duration: 8.30am – 10.30am
Date: 5 November 2024 (Tuesday)
Cost: £60 + VAT per person
- UKATA Cat B Non-Licensed Work with Asbestos
Duration: 10.45am – 4pm
Date: 5 November 2024 (Tuesday)
Cost: £120 + VAT per person
TRAINING – ONLINE COURSES
Wenlock Health & Safety Ltd (WHS) provides an extensive suite of fully certificated online courses, priced at a very reasonable £25 + VAT per course, to help with staff training when time is short. All that candidates need is access to a computer or laptop.
We would always recommend face-to-face training to help your workforce get the most out of course content, but these online courses offer a temporary solution when time is short or turnover is high; all courses take only 30-40 minutes to complete and can, of course, be completed at home as well as at work. Full details of all available online courses and booking facilities for this e-learning platform can be found on our website: www.wenlockhealthandsafety.co.uk
TRAINING – SHORT COURSES
And, in addition to the programmed courses we have on offer over the next few months (as listed below), don’t forget that WHS also provides a multitude of other short courses (both classroom and on-site based) to suit your needs. Feel free to contact Vicki Brown at the WHS office on 01952 885885, or via email on enquiries@wenlockhs.co.uk or vicki@wenlockhs.co.uk , to discuss your particular needs.
TRAINING – CITB COURSES
Refer also to the very important later section on new cheaper and easier ways to access CITB training
Please contact Vicki (as above) to book places on all the planned courses below. When booking courses, 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.
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 should make their own provision (bring their own food, or there are shops nearby and a small café on site).
Candidates must arrive by 8.15*am for registration; all courses start at 8.30am and finish at around 4.30pm.
* Please reiterate to all candidates the absolute need to make their way up to the WHS offices and log their vehicle registration accurately immediately upon arrival in the car park to avoid being charged for parking.
CITB COURSE DETAILS
- CITB Asbestos Awareness
Duration: Half-day
Date: 29 November 2024 (Friday)
Cost: £60 + VAT per person
- Site Management Safety Training Scheme (SMSTS)
Duration: 5 days; 1 day per week
Dates:
31 October, 7, 14, 21 & 28 November 2024 (Thursdays)
9, 16, 23, 30 January 2025 & 6 February 2025 (Thursdays)
20, 27 February & 6, 13, 20 March 2025 (Thursdays)
Cost: £495 + VAT per person
- Site Management Safety Training Scheme (SMSTS) Refresher
Duration: 2 days
Dates:
16 & 17 October 2024 (Wednesday & Thursday)
16 & 17 December 2024 (Monday & Tuesday)
10 & 11 February 2025 (Monday & Tuesday)
Cost: £285 + VAT per person (10% discount when booking 2 or more people on all courses)
- Site Supervisors Safety Training Scheme (SSSTS)
Duration: 2 days
Dates:
25 & 26 November 2024 (Monday & Tuesday)
13 & 14 January 2025 (Monday & Tuesday)
25 & 26 March 2025 (Tuesday & Wednesday)
Cost: £250 + VAT per person (10% discount when booking 2 or more people on all courses)
- Site Supervisors Safety Training Scheme (SSSTS) Refresher
Duration: 1 day
Dates:
7 October 2024 (Monday)
2 December 2024 (Monday)
3 February 2025 (Monday)
Cost: £170 + VAT per person (10% discount when booking 2 or more people on all courses)
- CITB 1-Day Health & Safety Awareness
Duration: 1 day
Dates:
2 October 2024 (Wednesday)
5 December 2024 (Thursday)
27 January 2025 (Monday)
Cost: £145 + VAT per person (10% discount when booking 2 or more people on all courses)
TRAINING – OTHER COURSES
CDM 2015
Covering the legal duties of all parties – even more important to understand now that the Building Safety Act has put additional pressures on all parties involved in construction, from client to contractors
Duration: Half-day
Date: 11 October 2024 (Friday)
Cost: £60 + VAT per person
FIRST AID
1-day Emergency First-Aid at Work course dates are listed below; specific requirements and controls will be advised within the joining instructions.
Dates:
28 October 2024 (Monday) limited places available; book now to avoid disappointment
27 November 2024 (Wednesday)
18 December 2024 (Wednesday)
29 January 2025 (Wednesday)
24 February 2025 (Monday)
Cost: £85 + VAT per person
MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID
1-day FAA Award in First Aid for Mental Health (Level 2 RQF)
Dates: 9 October 2024 (Wednesday)
Cost: £85 + VAT per person
IOSH MANAGING SAFELY
3-day IOSH Managing Safely course
Dates: 20, 21 & 22 January 2025 (Monday – Wednesday)
Cost: £450 + VAT per person
HSE NEWS
ASBESTOS – THE HSE CAMPAIGNS
The HSE has stated that 2,257 people died in 2022 from mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos at some point in their lives, a slight reduction on the figures from previous years.
However, it needs to be considered that mesothelioma is the only asbestos-related disease that the HSE records; many other forms of lung-cancers (e.g. asbestosis) go un-recorded and it has been said in the past that mesothelioma accounts for around 50% of the total asbestos-related deaths.
Whatever the accuracy of these figures, the fact remains that possibly 5000* people die in the UK each year as a result of asbestos exposure, which is shocking. Hence, the current HSE campaigns to combat asbestos exposure is hotting up. Refer to:
- Asbestos and You highlights the risk of asbestos to trades-people
- Asbestos – Your Duty; the legal duty to manage asbestos in buildings
* Various health bodies put the annual number of asbestos-related deaths possibly as high as 255,000 worldwide! Monkey-pox is, understandably, getting a great deal of media coverage right now but there is, as always, little or no coverage of this epidemic of totally avoidable asbestos-related fatalities.
ASBESTOS – RESULTS OF NON-COMPLIANCE
And just a couple of timely reminders:
Not only do businesses risk killing or severely harming employees (and others) when non-compliance with the legal requirements results in exposure, the HSE now levy a charge of £174* per hour for all interventions, enforcement, investigations and prosecutions resulting from breaches of the law. The costs soon mount up!!
And to ALL businesses – the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 apply to ALL commercial enterprises, no matter what their nature! It is a misconception that the Regulations apply exclusively to contractors, they do not. ALL persons in control of businesses have legal duties to prevent harm to employees and others affected.
* £174 per hour for a breach of asbestos law – weigh this up against £160 per person for training to ensure your personnel do things properly. Contact WHS to book your Cat B training places (full details above).
BUILDING SAFETY ACT
WEBINARS
The Building Safety Regulator and partners have recently hosted a series of webinars designed to inform duty holders (from client bodies to contractors) of their legal obligations under the Building Safety Act 2022; topics include:
- the fundamentals of the Building Safety Act
- information for Registered Building Inspectors
- the ‘Golden Thread’ of project information
- the building assessment certification process
All webinars are now available via Access the full webinar series; refer to videos 32 to 37 inclusive.
BUILDING CONTROL FOR HRBs
The Building Safety Regulator is urging developers, client bodies and others who require building control approval for HRBs (higher-risk buildings) to submit clear and comprehensive applications as early as possible. Recent delays in approvals are highlighting a general lack of planning and preparedness with submission.
ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced new roles and responsibilities for all parties in the construction industry. WHS has fully documented this in previous newsletters and in your health & safety packs; refer particularly to the WHS Information Sheet IS23.
The dedicated Making Building Safer website provides full information and guidance; refer to:
View roles and responsibilities
INDUSTRY NEWS
18th EDITION AMENDMENT 3
BS 7671:2018 Amendment 3:2024 was released on 31 July 2024, introducing two new definitions and new regulation regarding the use of bi-directional and uni-directional devices.
Amendment 3 can be downloaded free from
IET: https://electrical.theiet.org/bs-7671/updates-to-18th-edition/
NICEIC: https://theiet.msgfocus.com/k/Iet/bs_7671_2018_amendment_3
FREE ELECTRICAL CPD
Industry leaders, Schneider Electric are offering two free CPD sessions, available via You Tube, which are worth tapping into:
- Session 1 focuses on mitigating fire risks, covering essential fire safety measures, industry regulations and the latest advances in fire prevention technology.
- Session 2 focuses on understanding the benefits, features and applications when integrating Automatic Transfer Switches into your projects.
Both are invaluable CPD sessions; consider also subscribing online (free) to Schneider Electric Insider to be kept in touch with industry developments.
SILICOSIS
UK doctors are urging the Government to address the issue of lung disease caused by ‘cutting stone used in kitchen revamps’. Whilst the HSE and the construction industry have been well aware of the dangers of inhaling dusts for years now, there does seem to a particular issue related to the current trend of cutting and fitting ‘engineering stone’ for kitchen worktops, etc.
The issue is being taken so seriously in Australia that they banned its use in August. This ban resulted from hundreds of deaths proven to be from inhalation of the potentially deadly silicon-based dusts. UK doctors and the TUC are now pressing for a complete ban in the UK too on the use of this type of material which, because the health ill-effects can be rapid, is now evidently killing workers as young as 27.
We trust that all our customers are fully aware of the legal requirements to protect both employees and the public from exposure to dusts of all types; this should not be an issue for anyone reading this newsletter. However, WHS would remind customers that:
- Good design must take these issues into account; remove the need to cut on site where possible to prevent potential exposure and only cut in very controlled conditions back at the workshop.
- All unavoidable cutting on site must include very effective control measures to protect both employees and the public, such as extraction or suppression and the wearing of appropriate RPE (together with the legally required face-fit testing) as an additional precaution.
The HSE campaign against exposure to dusts and fumes is ongoing; non-compliance will result in a minimum of enforcement and possibly prosecution.
GENERAL NEWS
PERSONAL SAFETY
The issue of lone working applies to most industries but is particularly prevalent in construction where a lot of the work is carried out by sole traders, where lone travel to sites and meetings is the norm, and where work outside of normal office hours is not uncommon. And the risk issues involved are compounded significantly when called upon to work abroad.
A reminder here that the safety of all employees is the sole responsibility of the employer and the duty to risk assess all work circumstances is absolute. The first (legal) duty of any employer is to avoid risks so far as reasonably practicable, i.e. eliminate lone working where at all possible, and there are many ways this can be done, often without additional expense.
However, nobody would suggest that lone working can be eliminated completely so employers must then consider how best to reduce and control risks. Each situation will present different risks, hence the (legal) requirement to risk assess according to the prevailing circumstances. If you’re in any doubt at all about how to risk assess lone working, do contact WHS and we’d be more than happy to assist.
Do be aware that the employers’ duty of care doesn’t stop once the company shuts down each day if employees are still out and about for work purposes; care must extend until the employees are safely home or at their overnight stop. You will no doubt be aware of the multiple free apps that can now be installed on mobiles to keep a track on the whereabouts of employees or for employees themselves to summon help, and it would be wise to liaise with your staff and agree which apps suit your purposes. For example:
- The ‘what3words’ app has now become a standard tool for pinpointing locations both of premises and employees. The app is expanding all the time to provide additional and very useful facilities and can be recommended for both work and personal use. Details can be found on:
https://what3words.com/products/what3words-app - Apple itself provides the ‘Find My’ app for iphones which works even if the individual is offline: https://www.apple.com/uk/icloud/find-my/
- And a particularly useful app is ‘Holly Guard’ which has several features enabling users to summon immediate help: https://hollieguard.com/
However you choose to control lone working issues, and for any work outside company premises or standard working hours, these apps are extremely useful for ensuring that both employers and employees’ families know where individuals are and whether something may have happened to them. Hopefully, gone are the days when families didn’t find out for hours, or even days on some occasions in the past, that something had happened to a loved one.
AND FINALLY
Excavations
- Carrig Construction Services Ltd was fined £75,000 by Glasgow Sheriff Court after an excavation collapsed, killing an employee. The victim was trapped from his neck down and died from his injuries 3 days later. Carrig, which perported to be a groundworks specialist, had failed to risk assess the situation and provided no support for the vertical walls of the excavation.
It’s worth reminding readers that 1 cu.m of soil can weigh between 1.3 and 1.7 tonnes; NEVER assume that, just because someone is working in a trench from the waist down, he won’t be crushed (and possibly killed) if the excavation caves in. Just imagine how many cubic metres can fall in a collapse and how much that will weigh!
Work at height – as always
- Southampton Container Terminals Ltd was fined a massive £1 million plus costs of £11,665 after an employee fell 11 metres through a hole in the driver’s cab of a straddle carrier and died from his injuries. The hole had been created by contractors who were replacing a glass vision floor; the victim had been undertaking maintenance work and was not made aware of the open hole. There had been no risk assessment, no safe system of work and no permit to work system in place for the replacement work.
Another issue where yet another reminder is appropriate – the Work at Height Regulations 2005 apply to ALL industries, not just contractors. ALL businesses will ‘work at height’ at some point, even if just in an office environment; however, circumstances such as in this case provide ample evidence of just why the regulations are strict and apply to ALL businesses, no matter what work they undertake.
- EMC Elite Engineering Services Ltd was fined £52,500 plus costs of £6,871 after a mechanical engineer fell 11 metres and sustained serious injuries whilst repairing a conveyor system on HS2. Treads had been removed in the conveyor’s stairway so that it could be supported by a crane during the work, but this resulted in the gap through which the victim fell. The work had not been properly planned, supervised nor risk assessed, resulting in an ill-thought-out method of work.
- Wood Transmission and Distribution Ltd was fined £240,000 plus costs of £14,142 after an employee fell 10 metres from an electricity pylon and was paralysed from the chest down. The victim had been preparing the pylon for demolition but was not made aware that bolts had previously been loosened in advance (‘bolt cracking’); he had attached his lanyard to a section which was subsequently insecure and he fell.
The work had not been properly planned, supervised nor the risks associated with bolt cracking considered; it had failed to establish a process for transferring work from one team to the next, nor for recording and passing on critical information.
- Builder, David Beadle, narrowly avoided an immediate prison sentence after he had put the lives of his workers at extreme risk by failing to properly protect them from falls from height. He was given a 26-week suspended custodial sentence, ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid community service and to pay £6,043 in costs.
No edge protection had been provided to the side of the roof, the flat dormer nor the front elevation other than a Third World style attempt at some sort of scaffolding (with apologies to the Third World!).
Plant safety & segregation
- William Stobart & Son Ltd was fined £160,000 plus costs of £4,478 after an employee lost both legs when they were crushed by faling pallets of slate tiles. A forklift truck was transporting 2 pallets of slates but they were not secured; when the forklift turned a corner, both pallets slipped off, falling on the victim’s legs. The poor man had to have both legs amputated.
The company had failed to adequately separate pedestrians from moving plant and to ensure loads were secured before transportation.
- John Brooke (Timber Treatments) Ltd was fined £22,500 plus a whopping £44,227 costs after an employee was struck and killed by a loader shovel. The company had failed to segregate pedestrians from mobile plant and vehicles (which also included lorries, forklift trucks and 360 grabs) and to properly risk assess the use of machinery with reduced visibility, as with the loader in question.
- Fablink UKK was fined £30,000 plus costs of £6,104 after a welder working within a welding pen was struck by a reversing forklift, sustaining serious injuries. Measures to segregate pedestrians from plant and vehicles were found to be totally inadequate; apparently, it had been common practice for forklifts to enter welding pens with pedestrians in close proximity! In addition, there was insufficient risk assessment and the forklift had been in extremely poor condition with no maintenance regime in place.
- Pink Skips (NW) Ltd was fined £106,700 plus £5,744 costs after an employee lost a leg when he was struck by an excavator. Three men had been sorting refuse in close proximity to the 360-excavator when it suddenly moved backwards, running over the victim’s leg which subsequently had to be amputed above the knee.
The company had failed to segregate pedestrians from plant, despite having a written safe system of work in place stating that employees were not to work in close proximity or within the swing reach of excavators.
Lastly – reasons to be cheerful
WHS is now the proud sponsor of under 7s football team Nova United based in Newport, Shropshire.
Let’s hope they do well in the coming season; come on lads!!!
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