Whatever the size of your organisation, health and safety in the workplace is an important issue. The latest health a safety statistics published by the Health and Safety Executive show that British businesses lost more than 30 million working days in 2017/18 due to work-related illness and injuries. In 2016/17, injuries and ill health caused by working conditions are estimated to have cost £15 billion.

These eight steps serve as a health and safety blueprint that will help your company to avoid the loss of productivity and extra cost burden caused by work-related accidents, injuries and illness.

1.      Create a workplace health and safety plan

You’ll need to identify health and safety hazards and put polices and procedures in place to eliminate or reduce risks. The first step is to create an effective H&S plan, and ensure that you involve your employees. This will make sure that they understand you take their health and safety seriously and get them taking their own health and safety equally seriously.

2.      Ensure leadership

Appoint someone to lead health and safety in your company. To make it plain how important you consider H&S to be, planning and execution must be sponsored from the top. It should be visible and spoken about, with policies and practices set and performance monitored.

In smaller companies, a documented health and safety system may not be necessary. However, the actions of the business owner or senior managers should set good examples for staff to follow. In larger companies, the need to document policies and procedures is more important (and a legal requirement). Health and safety leaders will need to ensure that these policies and procedures are reviewed regularly.

3.      Carry out a health and safety audit and risk assessments

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. In the field of health and safety, this means that you must have an independent workplace health and safety audit. This will help you to determine the H&S hazards and risks in your business and if your existing policies and practices are safe and legal.

Risk assessments will aid you in identifying the level of risk of individual hazards and what actions you may need to take to eliminate or reduce those risks.

4.      Ensure Competence

From leadership, through management, and on to individual responsibility for health and safety, a company should ensure competence to undertake responsibilities. This means the people who lead the health and safety effort should have the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to do so.

Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSWR), a company must appoint at least one competent person to help it comply with its legal requirements toward health and safety. In many cases, this may mean employing an external specialist or consultant.

5.      Train employees in health and safety

Just as you would train employees to do their job effectively, employees should be trained in health and safety pertinent to their roles. You may need to produce written policies and procedures, and make them available to your employees. Training may be provided in groups or by individual coaching, and employees will need to be supervised until competency has been assessed and confirmed. Employees should sign off to confirm that they have received health and safety training and understand what is required of them.

Remember that if correct training is not provided, you may be endangering your employees’ lives and your business.

6.      Make health and safety an everyday conversation

Put health and safety on the agenda at team meetings, one-to-ones and on your company newsletter, and create KPIs that promote health and safety in the workplace. Seek feedback, and encourage employees to share their views and ideas – you’ll be surprised how employee engagement can create impetus for identifying hazards and doing things more safely.

7.      Investigate health and safety incidents

If an incident does occur, irrespective of whether it causes injury, investigate it to find out what happened and why. This will enable you to take the actions needed to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. It may be that a hazard needs risk management revisiting, or an individual or team needs extra health and safety training. Whatever the outcome, a policy of investigating every incident will help to reinforce your commitment to improving workplace health and safety.

8.      Keep records

Keep records of all incidents, inspections, risk assessments, workplace health and safety audits, training provided, etc, etc.

Make safety a key business objective

Health and safety should not be an afterthought in any company. If you are not working to keep your employees safe from harm, you are putting them at risk and threatening the success of your business. Your employees are your most valuable resource. A commitment to their health and safety in your workplace will show that you understand this.

Ensure your company is admired for being a conscientious employer who puts the wellbeing of its employees at the top of its agenda. To learn how we can help you achieve all this with a health and safety blueprint, contact Integral Safety Management today.

Health and safety statistics published in October 2018 showed that there is still plenty to do to make workplaces safer in the UK. While the numbers of accidents and fatalities continue to fall, they still don’t make pleasant reading. Here’s a snapshot of the figures for 2017/18:

• 555,000 injuries occurred at work according to the Labour Force Survey
• 71,062 injuries to employees reported under RIDDOR
• 144 workers killed at work

In addition, 1.4 million people suffered from a work-related illness. Because of work-related illness and injury, almost 31 million work days were lost. In 2016/17, it was estimated that work-related illness and injury cost British business £15 billion. Put another way, poor health and safety at work costs British business almost twice the UK’s EU payments each year.

In this article, you’ll learn four ways to make a workplace safer.

1.      Conduct a health and safety audit in the workplace

Health and safety laws, rules, regulations and best practices evolve over time. What may have helped to keep your employees healthy and safe two or three years ago may be poor practice today. A health and safety audit in the workplace is essential to appraise your current procedures and processes and ensure they are fit for purpose and legal.

Your health and safety audit must be conducted by a competent person with the knowledge, skills and experience to do so – and they must not be one of your employees or otherwise associated with your organisation. This independence ensures a non-biased audit.

(Read more in our article “What is a health and safety audit in the workplace?”)

2.      Make sure your employees understand the most common workplace hazards

No workplace can be hazard free, but making certain that your employees understand the most common hazards and how to reduce the risks of accident and injury will help to reduce the number of days lost and associated costs. The main hazards are:

• Slips, trips and falls
• Electrocution
• ‘Caught-in’ hazards
• ‘Struck-by’ hazards

Get your employees actively involved in their own health and safety. Ask them to consider what hazards and risks there are, and have them think about how to reduce those risks.

Start the ball rolling by sending your employees a link to our article “How to protect your employees from general workplace hazards” and discussing their thoughts at your next team meeting.

3.      Carry out an HSE risk assessment

An HSE risk assessment will help you to analyse your workplace and working practices, so that you identify the risks and put in place the controls needed to minimise these risks and reduce loss, damage, or injury. There are five steps to making an effective HSE risk assessment:

1. Identify the hazards
2. Decide who is at risk

• Evaluate those risks and produce precautions

1. Record significant findings
2. Review and update

A tip here is to use an HSE risk assessment template to make sure that you cover everything needed.

(Learn more and discover an easy way to carry out an HSE risk assessment by reading this simple guide to an HSE risk assessment.)

4.      Create a culture of health and safety in your workplace

Above all else, it is essential to create a culture of health and safety in your workplace. Let your employees know that your organisation puts the health and safety of them above profit. There are a few strategies you can employ to change your workplace culture and get people thinking more about health and safety. For example:

• Ensure that H&S training is conducted at induction and then updated regularly
• Reward employees for safe behaviour and good H&S ideas that make the workplace safer
• Partner with an H&S expert to provide independent training and conduct H&S audits and risk assessments
• Ensure signage draws attention to hazards, risks and required procedures
• Put H&S on the agenda of every team meeting

Health and safety is everyone’s responsibility

If you create the right culture within your organisation, then everyone will start to take responsibility for health and safety. Your employees will become part of a workplace coalition that improves wellbeing in the workplace, reducing accidents and injuries, and cuts the cost of workplace illness and injury. Your organisation will become a more productive, happier place to work. And your organisation will be doing its bit to drive health and safety in the right direction in the UK.

Ensure your company is admired for being a conscious employer that puts the wellbeing of its employees at the top of its agenda. To learn how we can help you achieve all this, contact Integral Safety Management today.

In this article, you’ll learn about the most common injuries caused by machinery in the workplace, and the responsibilities of employers and employees to minimise risks – as provided for in the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER).

When do the regulations apply?

PUWER applies to all equipment supplied by the employer in the workplace. Crucially, it also applies to equipment that the employer allows the employee to use. Therefore, you will need to ensure that an employee’s own equipment complies with PUWER. For the sake of PUWER, workplaces that are covered by the regulations include all those where the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 applies – including factories, offices, shops, construction sites, hotels, offshore installations, etc.

What types of injuries are caused by machinery?

Common injuries caused by workplace machinery include:

• Amputation
• Crushing
• Electric shock
• Hearing loss
• Broken limbs
• Cuts and abrasions
• Burns

Machinery causes such injuries by:

• Cutting
• Shearing
• Puncturing
• Tearing
• Stretching
• Entangling
• Burning

Why does machinery cause injuries?

Evidence as to why machinery so often causes injuries is readily available in the HSE news pages. At the time of writing this article, seven of the first 10 press releases detail fines handed out to employers because of injuries or deaths caused by machinery in the workplace – all of which could have been avoided.

Typically, reasons why machinery causes injuries include:

• Inadequate or no guarding on machines
• Guards not properly fastened or removed for maintenance
• Opening in guards that allow operators to put their hands into the machine
• Interlocked guards that open while the machine is running
• Mechanisms from switches have been removed
• Single-light beam safeguards have been switched off
• Ineffective power isolation systems

All of the above are mechanical deficiencies, and many of them are perpetrated by the employer or employee. Worryingly, accidents caused by such inadequacies are commonplace. Fortunately, there are strategies an employer can put in place to minimise the risks of accidents in the workplace caused by machinery.

How can employers minimise machinery accidents in the workplace?

The best way to deal with risks of injury in the workplace is to manage the hazard that causes the risks.  The key is to first identify all machinery hazards and conduct health and safety risk assessments. You should then seek ways to eliminate the risk (e.g. ensuring guards are fitted, checked and used correctly), and if this isn’t possible, then to minimise the risk. Strategies to minimise risks include:

• Ensuring safe working practices are used
• Training of employees in machinery use and health and safety issues
• Using PPE to help protect against risks
• Monitoring employees for adherence to health and safety at work and operational processes

The employer’s responsibility for the use of machinery

As an employer, PUWER places many responsibilities on you for the health and safety of your employees and others when either using machinery or in an area where machinery is being used. You will need to ensure (as far as is practicably possible) that you:

• Identify hazards and risks and manage them
• Train employees so they can carry out their jobs safely
• Ensure work is carried out safely, and supervise employees when and if necessary
• Provide adequate personal protective equipment
• Ensure accidents are reported and investigated, and procedures are updated to help avoid similar accidents in the future
• Have procedures for dealing with emergencies

Training and supervision – a workplace obligation

If you don’t provide adequate training to employees who use machinery and they are injured while operating that machinery, it could cost you thousands in fines and a loss of productivity due to absenteeism (plus a hit to your reputation as a business and employer). For example, in 2017, a Birmingham-based packaging company was fined £100,000 for a lack of guarding on a machine and a lack of training and supervision which led to an accident in which the operator had two fingers partially amputated.

Training on machinery must include:

• Explanation of actual and potential hazards associated with the machinery
• Safety precautions that must be taken
• Health and safety processes and procedures

The employee should be able to show that he or she can:

• Check and adjust the machine before operating it
• Stop and start the machine
• Recognise faults
• Correctly use and adjust machine guards
• Use all machine controls

In addition, the employer must:

• Have an inspection and maintenance regime in place, with work carried out by a competent person
• Take reasonable precautions to ensure that the machinery has stopped when maintenance or cleaning is carried out
• Ensure that any modifications made are completed by a competent person, and validated to meet set standards

The employee’s responsibility for the use of machinery

The employee also has health and safety responsibilities when using machinery. These responsibilities include:

• Their own health and safety
• Not harming others because of their actions or omissions
• Complying with the employer’s procedures
• Identifying and reporting hazards
• Using all PPE as needed and stipulated by the employer
• Reporting any faults

In summary

Health and safety is a joint responsibility between employer and employee. However, the buck will always stop with the employer. To ensure you comply with current health and safety regulations and that your machine operators are not put at risk unnecessarily, you should:

• Carry out an inspection and audit of your workplace
• Conduct workplace risk assessments
• Provide health and safety training to your employees

Whatever your H&S needs, we can tailor our consultancy services accordingly to help ensure your employees stay safe and the risk of injury when operating machinery is fully minimised.

To learn more and discuss your specific requirements, contact Integral Safety Management today.

If your employees may be exposed to a health or safety risk, it is your duty to supply them with suitable personal protective equipment (PPE). The only exception is if the risk has been adequately controlled by other means which are at least as effective. This is the law as it stands, and as described in Regulation 4 of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.

In this article, we discuss how to decide the needs for PPE for employees.

PPE in the workplace – an employer’s obligations in brief

There are certain obligations that the law places on employers with regards to personal protective equipment. These can be summarised in the following bullet points:

• PPE must only be used as a last resort

• Other methods of controlling risks and reducing hazards must be explored first, and implemented where possible

• If PPE is still needed after implementation of other controls, then the employer must provide the PPE

• The employer cannot charge employees for PPE supplied

• PPE training must be provided to employees, including how it is to be used and detection and reporting of faults

Types of PPE for employees

There are many different types and categories of PPE, and their uses depend upon the potential risks.

• Eyes are prone to injury from projectiles, gases, radiation, and chemical splashes. PPE to help protect against such risks includes safety spectacles or goggles, face shields and visors. When selecting which eye protection is best, an employer should consider which offers the best combination to protect against impact and foreign bodies.

• Ears must be protected against high levels of sound, especially if exposure is for prolonged periods. Ear defenders, earplugs and canal caps are common PPE for employees who need ear protection. A tip here is to ensure that the ear protection provided reduces the noise to an acceptable level while allowing communication to still take place.

• Head and neck injuries may be caused by bumping, impact, falls, temperature, flying objects, and hair becoming tangled in machinery. Hard hats, bump caps, hairnets and helmets offer protection against these hazards. Some safety helmets are equipped with eye and/or ear protection.

• Hands and arms may be injured by cutting, abrasion, burning (hot and cold) impact, chemicals, radiation, biological hazards, electric shocks, and so on. They are probably more prone to injury than any other body part. Gloves, gauntlets and sleeving are common PPE to protect hands and arms, though care should be taken when selecting the right hand and arm protection. Separate cotton inner gloves may need to be provided, and the material of gloves should be considered by first considering the hazard – for example, some chemicals will penetrate some materials.

• Lungs are affected by inhalation of dust, gases and vapours, and in oxygen-deficient environments. Masks or respirators may need to be provided. These should be tight fitting, with the correct type of respirator attached. Filters must be renewed regularly, and according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

• Feet and legs are susceptible to injury because of extreme temperatures, slipping, tripping and falling, cuts, chemical splashes, heavy loads, etc. Appropriate footwear to help protect against such risks include safety boots with protective toecaps, penetration-resistant boots, and other specific footwear according to workplace application.

• Whole body PPE may be required in certain working environments. These include to protect against radiation and extreme temperatures, pressure leaks from spray guns, steam, and contaminated atmospheres. Options range from disposable overalls to aprons, to chemical suits.

How do you know which PPE to provide employees?

When assessing risks and deciding on which PPE is necessary in your workplace, you should take an individual and team approach. Ask of each employee or team:

• What is the exposure to risk, and who is exposed?

• For how long is the exposure to the risk?

• What is the degree of exposure to the risk?

The PPE you provide should fit the user well, and you should provide training in its use. It is essential to make clear that PPE is limited in effectiveness – no PPE provides 100% protection against risks. Additionally:

• Ensure that all PPE supplied carries the appropriate CE mark

• If two or more items of PPE are to be used at the same time, you must ensure it is safe to do so and that they are compatible

• Never allow employees not to wear PPE – include this in their job description and employee manual

Keeping PPE in good condition

PPE degrades over time and its effectiveness is affected by wear and tear. Part of the training that is given to employees should include how to check PPE. Companies should provide a safe and adequate storage space, and ensure that there is an adequate supply of spare parts (e.g. filters for respirators).

Finally, while the employee is responsible to use PPE provided, management should monitor use and take disciplinary action where PPE is not used, or used incorrectly.

PPE for employees is the last line of protection against hazards and risks in the workplace. If you do not provide the right personal protective equipment, you could be putting the lives of your employees at risk. Your health and safety record reflects upon you as an employer.

If you are in any doubt about your needs for PPE for your employees, contact Integral Safety Management today. Our expert help will ensure that your health and safety practices remain compliant with current laws, rules and regulations, and that you provide the safest working environment possible.