UK Health & Safety News Roundup – December 2018

Health and safety is a serious issue

As health and safety consultants and experts in our field, it’s essential that we remain up to date with what’s happening in the market. Laws and regulations change. Best practices are continually evolving.

Our monthly Health and Safety News Roundup is our pick of the news items and articles that we’ve read over the past month. We hope you find this month’s selection as informative and thought-provoking as we do.

This month’s news highlights how well UK industry is doing with health and safety, while also showing how much further we have to travel to what must be the ultimate goal: zero injuries and deaths in the workplace. Striking news includes:

• After last month’s news that Amazon has suffered 440 H&S accidents since 2015, it has been reported that Amazon’s Peterborough warehouse called for an ambulance on average once every three weeks between June 2015 and June 2018. However, Amazon quotes that the Health and Safety Executive has reported that Amazon suffers 40% fewer injuries than the UK average for transportation and warehousing companies.

• Do you think ‘early finish Friday; would stop UK construction workers taking health and safety risks and rushing jobs on a Friday afternoon to get to the pub earlier? This is what Protecting.co.uk believes, after discovering that three quarters of construction workers rush their jobs at the end of a week.

• As the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement has been finalised, if not quite signed off yet, we couldn’t not mention the ‘B’ word. British manufacturers have lobbied government via a report titled Making Health & Safety Work for UK Business – Manufacturers’ Concerns in a post-Brexit World. It wants the government to ensure that the current health and safety landscape is maintained after the UK leaves the EU.

• An article in ThisWeekinFM discusses digital innovations, and asks if they could aid health and safety, improving accountability and reducing risks and injuries. Do wearables, drones, and monitoring equipment have a place in your company to help keep remote workers and others safe?

As always, plenty to get your health and safety juices flowing, whatever industry you work in. Click on the headlines to reveal the full article.

·South Western Railway criticised by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall after …

South Western Rail is one of the only train companies in the UK which does not let … I bought a smaller cup but refused due to health and safety rules. Surprised …

·HSE releases Great Britain’s annual injury and ill health statistics

Annual statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show 1.4 million … and ill-health statistics report can be found at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/

·The number of ambulances called to Amazon’s Peterborough …

“All of our sites are safe places to work and reports to the contrary are simply wrong. According to the UK Government’s Health and Safety Executive, Amazon

·UK workers admit to carrying out sloppy work on a Friday

A survey of UK construction workers undertaken by legal consultant … down the line, they also open up a can of worms when it comes to health and safety.

·INDUSTRY CALLS FOR UK TO KEEP EU HEALTH & SAFETY …

Britain’s manufacturers are appealing for the current health & safety landscape to be maintained when the UK leaves the European Union, with existing worker .

·Can Connected Systems Benefit Health & Safety?

… a great advance to the large number of mobile and remote workers in the UK. … This is revolutionising the way health and safety professionals do their jobs

·Steel fabricators fined after employee received multiple fractures

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the company did not have a safe system of work in place to avoid this kind of incident.