Welcome to the first North Durham Safety Ltd Newsletter.
In this edition you will find important updates from the Health and Safety Executive, prosecution information on companies found in breach of Health and Safety legislation and lots more information that we hope you find relevant to your company.
NEW in 2019
Respirator Face Fit Testing
North Durham Safety Ltd Can now offer you a bespoke ‘Respirator Face Fit Testing’ (Qualitative) service. Delivered by a qualified Face Fit Tester trained by accredited Fit2Fit approval scheme training course provider.
Check our website under Services for further details on how to book a Face Fit Test and Prices.
Health and Safety Executive Announce 5 Year Plan
Sector Plans and Health Priority Plans
HSE’s focus over the next 3-5 years is set out in sectors. These cover 19 industry sectors and 3 themes on work-related ill health. They have split Great Britain’s workplaces into 19 sectors, based on industry type and risk profile. Sectors range from agriculture, public services, waste and recycling, utilities, explosives, and gas and pipelines, to name but a few.
In this 1st edition we will focus on 3 of the 19 sectors that may have the greatest impact to your business; Logistics and Transport, Construction and Manufacturing.
Sector Plan – Logistics and Transport
The sector includes distribution centers, road-haulage, postal and courier services, ports and airports. There are around 900,000 people working in logistics alone, with the number involved in road haulage and ‘final-mile’ delivery activities rising. The sector contributes around £70 billion to the economy, around 4% of the total, with the prospect of further sustained growth.
Current Position
The logistics sector has a worse-than-average record for Health and Safety performance. Recent Labour Force Surveys show the non-fatal injuries rate is almost double the all-industries rate. Similarly, for work-related ill health, the rate of Musculoskeletal disorder is 50% higher. Both rates are particularly high in the postal and courier sub-sector, but nearly all the sub-sectors have higher than average rates, especially for injuries. Other important health issues can be grouped around the effects of the driving environment, including welfare arrangements for delivery drives and fatigue. Traditional industry risks and how to manage them, such as working at height, are well known in the sector. Less widely recognised issues, such as load security, are a cause for concern. Poor packing, securing and marking can cause significant risks during transit and then again at the delivery site. There is an ongoing focus on work-related road risk, with a March 2015 Transport Safety Commission report suggesting that 30% of deaths and serious injuries on the roads occur in the course of work.
HSE Outcomes and Priorities
The sector will be a priority for HSE in order to achieve the following outcomes:
- Improve the securing of loads
- Reduce the rate of ill health caused by musculoskeletal disorders
- Increase engagement on work-related road risk
Sector Plan – Construction
The construction sector ranges from large, high-profile projects to small-scale works by the self-employed. Around 2.2 million people work in the sector, representing around 7% of the British workforce. The industry contributes around £97 billion to the economy, 84% having no employees and another 14% having 9 or fewer workers.
Current Position
Construction remains a hazardous industry, accounting for almost 30% of all fatal injuries to workers. In the five years to March 2016, 210 construction workers died and many more received life changing injuries at work. Performance has improved over the past decade, and the number and rate of fatal incidents, work-related injury and ill health show a general, long term downward trend. However, the levels of incidents and ill health remain high, with some recent signs of the numbers levelling off. Developments in the management of health risks have not kept pace with safety improvements. In 2015/16, 3.7% of the workforce suffered from an illness they believe was caused, or made worse, by their work. The sector has a statistically significantly higher rate of occupational lung disease and musculoskeletal disorders (MSD’s) than the average for all industries. The majority of fatal incidents involve small businesses, and nearly half of all reported injuries occur in refurbishment activities. Risks on larger projects can be substantial but, generally, large projects are better at controlling risks than most small projects, where there can be a lack of awareness of even basic health and safety standards.
HSE Outcomes and Priorities
Construction will continue to be a priority sector for HSE. They want to see a continuation of the downward trends in fatal incidents, work-related injury and ill health, which will be tackled by achieving the following outcomes:
- Embedding the principles of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM);
- Focusing on a reduction in the cases of occupational lung disease, MSDs and work-related stress;
- Supporting small businesses to achieve improved risk management and control.
Sector Plan – Manufacturing
This sector covers a diverse range of industries, from small-scale motor vehicle repair, woodworking and metal fabrication, paper and plastic manufacture to car manufacture, aerospace and shipbuilding. It excludes the manufacture of chemicals and explosives. Around 3 million people work in this sector, representing around 9% of the British workforce. It contributes around £140 billion to the economy, around 10% of the total.
Current Position
The sector has a mixed health and safety record and more improvements need to be made. On average, 27 workers are killed each year in this sector, accounting for almost 20% of all workplace fatalities. The rate of fatal injury is higher than the all-industry average, with main causes being struck by objects, fall from height and contact with machinery. Around 3% (78,000) of workers are injured in workplace incidents annually, higher than the all-industry rate, and the main causes are lifting, handling, slips, trips and falls.
Annually, around 3% (86,000) of workers suffer an illness they believe to be work-related, a similar level to workplace injury. Known health issues across the sector include work-related Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), Stress, and Lung disease.
HSE Outcomes and Priorities
Manufacturing will continue to be a priority sector for HSE. They want to see improvements in all areas of health and safety performance, particularly to achieve the following outcomes:
- Reducing the cases of occupational lung diseases, MSDs and work-related stress;
- Reducing serious and fatal incidents, particularly those caused by heavy loads, maintenance and catastrophic events;
- Increase cooperation between all parts of the sector, and sub-sectors, to identify and solve health and safety problems.
Health Priority Plans
HSE has set three priorities for our work on occupational health – occupational lung disease, musculoskeletal disorders and work-related stress. We will take a closer look at what this could mean to your business in our next edition.
HEALTH AND SAFETY EXECUTIVE SAFETY ALERT – ISSUED FEBRUARY 2019
Employers urged to protect workers from welding fumes – Change in Enforcement Expectations for Mild Steel Welding Fume. Targeted at all workers, employers, self-employed, contractors’ and any others who undertake welding activities, including mild steel, in any industry.
- There is new scientific evidence that exposure to all welding fume, including mild steel welding fume, can cause lung cancer.
- There is also limited evidence linked to kidney cancer.
- There is a change in HSE enforcement expectations in relation to the control of exposure of welding fume, including that from mild steel welding.
- All businesses undertaking welding activities should ensure effective engineering controls are provided and correctly used to control fume arising from those welding activities.
- Where engineering controls are not adequate to control all fume exposure, adequate and suitable respiratory protective equipment (RPE) is also required to control risk from the residual fume.
The Workplace Health Expert Committee has endorsed the reclassification of mild steel welding fume as a human carcinogen. With immediate effect, there is a strengthening of HSE’s enforcement expectation for all welding fume, including mild steel welding; because general ventilation does not achieve the necessary control.
Control of the cancer risk will require suitable engineering controls for all welding activities indoors e.g. Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV). Extraction will also control exposure to manganese, which is present in mild steel welding fume, which can cause neurological effects similar to Parkinson’s disease.
Where LEV alone does not adequately control exposure, it should be supplemented by adequate and suitable respiratory protective equipment (RPE) to protect against the residual fume. Appropriate RPE should be provided for welding outdoors. You should ensure welders are suitably instructed and trained in the use of these controls. Regardless of duration, HSE will no longer accept any welding undertaken without any suitable exposure control measures in place, as there is no known level of safe exposure. Risk assessments should reflect the change in the expected control measures.
Action Required
- Make sure exposure to any welding fume released is adequately controlled using engineering controls (typically LEV).
- Make sure suitable controls are provided for all welding activities, irrelevant of duration. This includes welding outdoors.
- Where engineering controls alone cannot control exposure, then adequate and suitable RPE should be provided to control risk from any residual fume.
- Make sure all engineering controls are correctly used, suitably maintained and are subject to thorough examination and test where required.
- Make sure any RPE is subject to an RPE programme. An RPE programme encapsulates all the elements of RPE use you need to ensure that your RPE is effective in protecting the wearer.
WHO’S IN THE DOCK
Steep Rise in Health and Safety Fines
The largest UK fines for health and safety incidents have increased substantially in the past year, with some of the biggest brands in business having to pay millions of pounds for failing to control serious risks to employees and the public.
There were 19 fines of £1 million or more in 2016 – the largest being £5 million. This compares with three fines of £1 million or more in 2015 and none in 2014.
The rise in fines is a result of the introduction of new sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences, which came into force on 1 February 2016.
Council fined £200k for exposing Primary School staff to asbestos
A school in Sittingbourne, Kent, failed to heed recommendations from a survey to remove asbestos disturbed by its caretaker 18 months earlier, a court was told. Kent County Council was fined £200,000 for the oversight because, as the employer under the Health and Safety at Work Act, it had failed to ensure employees liable to be exposed to asbestos had been trained adequately. An investigation by the HSE found that the school’s caretaker, on the apparent instructions of the then headteacher, had disturbed an asbestos flue pipe and an asbestos rope gasket while removing an air steriliser in May 2013 to make way for a freezer.
Construction companies ceiling tile oversight exposed workers to asbestos
A principal contractor (PC) on a school refurb project and a construction firm appointed to carry out work on its behalf must pay fines totalling £112k after exposing workers for a subcontractor to asbestos fibres. The HSE found PC Ashe Construction had appointed cladding installer Cladceil to carry out the refurbishment at Oakwood Junior School in Derby on 1 August 2016 during the school holidays. The Nottingham-based company had subcontracted the work to another company and its workers had been asked to remove suspended ceiling tiles from rooms in the school. Unaware of the risk, two workers entered a storage room and started to remove ceiling tiles made of asbestos containing materials, potentially exposing themselves to the harmful fibres.
Has your business got an Asbestos:
- Register?
- Survey?
- Signage in place?
- Management Awareness training?
Worker loses leg in oil drum explosion
A commercial vehicle dealer has been fined £400,000 and ordered to pay costs of £9,670 after an oil drum blast resulted in a worker losing his leg from the knee down. The employee had been working for Rygor Commercials at Hambridge Business Park in Newbury, Berkshire, when an empty oil drum he was cutting up exploded on 5 January 2017.
Reading Magistrates’ Court was told that the worker was using an oxy-acetylene gas cutter when the flame ignited vapours inside the drum, causing it to explode. The lid struck the worker’s right leg and the main body of the drum landed about 20 m away. It had not identified the risk of fire and explosion from flammable vapour residues inside the empty drums, nor had it communicated to its workforce the risks of using oxy-acetylene gas equipment.
Veolia fined £1m after refuse worker run over and killed
Veolia ES has been fined £1m after one of its employees was run over and killed by a dustbin lorry in Kent.
Canterbury Crown Court was told that John Head, 60, was struck by the reversing vehicle at the company’s household waste recycling depot in Ross Way, Folkestone, on 18 October 2013. He sustained fatal injuries and died at the scene. An HSE investigation revealed refuse collection vehicle and articulated lorry drivers often manoeuvred around the yard without specific controls in place.
It said Veolia had failed to risk assess its yard activities and had not implemented industry-recognised control measures to protect its employees. Veolia reviewed and updated its safe system of work after the accident.
Lorry driver struck during walkaround safety check
A delivery driver was hit by a reversing vehicle as he carried out a pre-use check on his lorry, a court has heard. Logistics firm PCL Transport, which distributes chilled goods, has been fined £150,000 over the incident at a dairy in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, on 15 December 2015.
Reading Crown Court was told lorry drivers ignored controls set out in PCL Transport’s safe system of work, principally the use of an allocated pre-use vehicle check area. The victim was ‘seriously hurt’, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said.
PCL Transport pleaded guilty to breaching Reg 17 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, which covers the organisation of traffic routes so that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate safely. It must pay £17,650 costs.
Yardman loses leg after forklift accident at chicken facility
A poultry producer has been fined £866,650 after a forklift truck driver reversed into a yardman and injured him.
The accident happened on 24 January 2017 after the forklift driver had dropped off some pallets in Moy Park’s yard at the Airfield Industrial Estate in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. He reversed around a trailer and did not see the yardman, who was standing behind the trailer and was unaware that the forklift truck was manoeuvring in the area. The yardman sustained serious injuries and his left leg had to be amputated above the knee.
TOP 10 WORST HEALTH AND SAFETY MYTHS
There is no shortage of daft decisions being blamed on health and safety. Over the years, the Health and Safety Executive has tackled some quite incredible myths about what health and safety bans or orders people to do. It’s hard to tell where some of these ridiculous and baffling myths originate, but they all have one crucial thing in common – they are not required by health and safety law.
North Durham Safety explains the myths one at a time:
Myth 1 – Risk Assessment is too complicated for me to do!
Carrying out a risk assessment should be straightforward. It’s about focusing on real risks and hazards that cause real harm and, more importantly, taking action to control them
Myth 2 – There’s nothing you can do about slips and trips and they don’t really hurt anyone anyway
Most slips and trips are preventable, and many happen when spills aren’t cleared up or clutter tidied away. Last year, there were 6 fatalities and more than 15,000 employees were seriously injured when they had a slip or trip at work. This results in broken bones and time off work, costing the economy around £900 million per year. Simple mistakes can shatter lives … your actions could help stop them from happening. Don’t take things for granted, cut corners or wait for someone else to do it. Clear up!
Myth 3 – Kids must wear goggles to play conkers
This is one of the oldest chestnuts around, a truly classic myth. A well-meaning head teacher decided children should wear safety goggles to play conkers. Subsequently some schools appear to have banned conkers on ‘health & safety’ grounds or made children wear goggles, or even padded gloves! Realistically the risk from playing conkers is incredibly low and just not worth bothering about. If kids deliberately hit each other over the head with conkers, that’s a discipline issue, not health and safety
Myth 4 – All park benches must be replaced because they are 3 inches too low
How could there be health & safety law on this? The simple answer is, there isn’t. ‘It seems that the story originated from a decision by a facility manager and has no basis in health and safety law at all. There are no such bench height requirements and HSE will definitely not be sending our inspectors around measuring the benches!
Myth 5 – Workers are banned from putting up Christmas decorations in the office
Bah Humbug! Each year we hear of companies banning their workers from putting up Christmas decorations in their offices for ‘health and safety’ reasons or requiring the work to be done by a ‘qualified’ person. Most organisations, including HSE and local councils, manage to put up their decorations, celebrating the spirit of Christmas without a fuss. They just sensibly provide their staff with suitable step ladders to put up decorations rather than expecting staff to balance on wheelie chairs.
Myth 6 – New regulations would require trapeze artists to wear hard hats
Despite being widely reported at the time and regularly repeated since, this story is utter nonsense. There never were any such regulations.
Hard hats do an excellent job of protecting building workers from falling debris – but they have no place on a trapeze.
Myth 7 – Health and Safety risks stop children playing ‘pin the tail on the donkey’
I recently read that the traditional party game ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ is allegedly under threat because parents consider it a health and safety risk. Not trusting children with drawing pins seems a little overprotective to me. After all, millions of children have been playing traditional party games like this for years without any problems. Was this just a marketing ploy to drum up sales of party games?
Myth 8 – Health and Safety brings candyfloss to a sticky end
But if you believe some newspaper headlines this beloved sweet treat is under threat – because of the dangers posed by the stick it is spun around. The truth is that there are no health and safety laws banning candyfloss on a stick. Is the traditional form of this sweet disappearing because it is easier to mass produce and store it in plastic bags? Who knows, but it certainly isn’t health and safety leaving anyone with a bad taste in their mouth.
Myth 9 – HSE bans traditional school ties
Few parents would see wearing ties at school as a safety issue. Millions of children have been wearing ties as part of their uniform for years without any problems. Simple precautions such as removing the tie during laboratory work or around machinery make sense. But if the concern is really about children fighting, while clip-on ties may help, the real issue is discipline. So HSE doesn’t ban school ties – it’s up to schools to make their own decisions about uniforms.
Myth 10 – Health and safety laws banned hanging baskets
Back in 2004 a town did briefly take down its hanging baskets over fears that old lamp posts would collapse. This was an overly-cautious reaction to a low risk. However, after quick checks the hanging baskets were replaced and have been on lamp posts in the town every year since. Despite this, the story continues to be repeated and the danger is someone will believe it is a genuine requirement and follow suit.
How safe is your business from the risk of FIRE?
Top tips for managing your Fire Safety
With the high profile placed on effective fire safety management in the current climate, it is important for all those with the responsibility for delivering an effective system to get to grips with the basics. Often, the internal health and safety team are seen as the ‘go-to’ staff to ensure everything is in place. So, what should team members know? Here are some helpful tips to set you on your way…
- Engage with your senior management – agree a short meeting in the diary, as this will help you get their full attention. They will need to know what they are responsible/accountable for and that resources will be required.
- Information, Information, information – gather resources, legislation, HM Government Guidance, HSE and BSI standards and guides applicable to your business/sector/premises.
- Find out what you’ve got already – establish what policies, systems, arrangements, physical protection (such as fire doors), fire warning systems, escape routes and firefighting equipment is already in place. The vast majority of premises and business have at least some of these, but you can’t manage what you don’t know about.
- Develop a strategy – compare your current arrangements with legal and best practice standards, find the gaps and formulate a strategy for delivery. You will need corporate ‘buy in’ so Tip 1 is very important. Fail to plan, plan to ………
- Your people – who have you got? what do they do? what skills knowledge, experience and training have they acquired? Pick their brains, consult and communicate the importance of fire safety. Upskill them – you will need assistance, internally and possibly externally.
- What gets measured gets done – establish formal monitoring systems, including physical checks and inspections by competent staff, supported by a testing and maintenance regime, to check your fire doors, firefighting equipment and your fire warning systems and all the arrangements you have in place to prevent and protect from the risk of fire. This will not remain intact without a system.
- Fire risk assessment – it’s the law. Every workplace has to have a suitable and sufficient assessment. If you have the required competencies, then you are in the best position to undertake this. If not, you will need to find a competent assessor/team. Don’t forget that completing the assessment is only the first stage; implementing the findings is critical, so develop a plan for delivery.
- Managing change – premises and business go through change. Many fire safety systems and arrangements can be compromised during change. For example, simple changes in layout can affect means of escape. In addition, change of personnel means you can lose key members (fire marshals/wardens). Develop a system to assess fire risks before changes take place and consider practical solutions. Essentially, avoid playing ‘catch-up’.
DRIVER ROAD SAFETY
A mounting concern. Two years in, Biffa’s campaign to stop reckless driving on pavements has shifted gears. Biffa’s kerbside waste and recycling collection teams routinely run the gauntlet of impatient car drivers mounting pavements beside them at speed to manoeuvre around the parked refuse vehicles.
The national recycling and waste management contractor took a while to grasp the scale of the hazard because crews seldom reported these near-misses. “The difficulty is getting the workers to accept there is a problem; they are so used to it,” says Dave West, Biffa’s regional health and safety coach. “Because they had no method of reporting the incidents to the police before the campaign, they just saw it as part of the job. They rarely reported them to their managers, let alone the police. Although it has now become one of the top ten near-miss issues that workers report in municipal collections, it is still under-reported.” The campaign West refers to is DRoPs (driving recklessly on pavements), launched in October 2016 to try to educate drivers about the risk they pose to the crews and other pedestrians. Video footage posted online (bit.ly/2PNnTtt), captured using vehicle-mounted 360° cameras, shows some operatives dodging the charging vehicles like matadors performing a paso doble.
To date, Biffa has reported one injury to crew in Staffordshire from kerb-mounting vehicles, two in Kent and two in Norwich. Although prosecutions brought by the police have confirmed that some of the reckless behaviour can be pinned on the type of driver’s officers expected – boy racers and delivery drivers – the data reveals it extends also to the professions, including teachers and doctors, as well as parents on the school run. “These aren’t criminals,” says West. “These are people who are just so focused on getting to their destination they fail to see the dangers in what they are doing.”
Driven to change
Driver performance data is of limited use if you don’t use it to coach better behaviour. Telematics is a combination of hardware installed in a vehicle and wireless data transmission that collects information on how safely someone is driving. There are many systems available, but all can record longitudinal and lateral movements – including braking, acceleration and steering – and location, using global positioning system data, to monitor speeding violations. Telematics data lets organisations analyse and improve journey planning and safety performance and provide drivers with evidence-based feedback and coaching. The systems allow employers to reward drivers’ compliance and good performance and to sanction repeated and deliberate non-compliance.
But these systems are not cheap and senior managers will want evidence that telematics can improve fleet safety. Studies in the late 1990s associated their use with reductions in crashes of up to 30%. More recently, reductions of 40% to 90% have been achieved by companies using telematics to underpin wider fleet risk management programmes. This evidence suggests that telematics is best used with interventions to modify problem behaviour reported by the system rather than in isolation as a monitoring tool.
Rolling Out
The way you deploy a telematics system will determine its effectiveness and driver acceptance. Like any initiative, it should be led by senior management to show employees it is important to the organisation. Deployment should start with the leaders and middle management to demonstrate their commitment. There are other core elements associated with successful implementations.
Distracted drivers cause death – and businesses need to overhaul to stop it, says IAM RoadSmart in new report
IAM RoadSmart has called for businesses to buck up their ideas to tackle the issue of distracted drivers at the wheel and overhaul their safety at work policies – and stem the tide of avoidable crashes on our roads. The UK’s biggest independent road safety charity has just published a whitepaper called Driving While Distracted: Challenges and Solutions, which examines the reasons why so many motorists’ minds wander whilst driving, and what can be done to reverse the shocking trend.
The whitepaper states that fleets are facing higher costs for fines, damages and charges; while at the same time manufacturers are intent on fitting vehicles with more distracting technology seemingly by the day. IAM RoadSmart highlights Department for Transport figures which show that in 2017 there were 4,639 casualties caused by in-vehicle distractions, which includes 88 fatalities and 614 serious injuries – very little difference from a decade ago. The report warned of driver distraction coming in four forms: mentally, visually, manually and through sound – and in today’s world, some of these factors can combine to make the problem significantly worse. These were highlighted in IAM RoadSmart’s 2017 report The Battle for Attention.
New whitepaper from Honeywell highlights the causes of occupational hearing loss
The latest whitepaper from Honeywell explores the causes and consequences of occupational noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) to help safety managers educate their workforce on the importance of adequate hearing protection. ‘Understanding the causes and consequences of occupational hearing loss’ looks at the risks associated with wearing poorly fitting or no hearing protection, with a focus on how NIHL affects a worker’s physical and psychological wellbeing, and also the cost of NIHL to the economy.
“Since it shows no visible signs of injury and develops over time, NIHL can be difficult to detect,” explains Kjersti Rutlin, global technical training specialist for hearing conservation, Honeywell Industrial Safety. “For too long, the health and safety community has considered this topic a low priority, despite the devastating effect NIHL has on quality of life for those affected, not to mention the substantial cost to businesses and society. Educating workers and employers on the importance of hearing protection is crucial for change.”
The whitepaper approaches the topic by exploring what noise consists of and provides examples of noise levels in some common working environments. It then goes on to discuss the real cost of neglecting hearing protection to both workers and businesses, and the challenges associated with understanding the actual noise levels workers are exposed to. Finally, it looks at how the recent changes to regulation and the latest advances in technology can help support hearing conservation efforts. Download a free copy of ‘Understanding the causes of and consequences of occupational hearing loss‘ here.
Featuring in the next North Durham Safety Ltd newsletter:
- HSE has set three priorities for our work on occupational health – occupational lung disease, musculoskeletal disorders and work-related stress;
- Know your motorway signs quiz;
- Behavioural Safety – what is it?
Thank You, hope you enjoyed this newsletter!