Posts Tagged ‘health and safety’
HEALTH and safety prosecutions are taking years to complete, and getting even longer, an inspector has warned.
The Crown Office’s health and safety division has been urged to deliver swifter justice.
The Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland (Ips) found that many prosecutions were now “several years old and the ‘time to clear’ figure of current work is increasing rather than decreasing”.
Chief inspector Joe O’Donnell said: “We found that the cases disposed of were of high quality, but our concern was the length of time taken to conclude them. Our recommendations, therefore, focus on ways to speed up the process.”
He was backed by Laura Cameron, head of legal firm Pinsent Masons’ regulatory group, who said: “It is a traumatic experience for surviving victims, their families and witnesses who are caught up in a health and safety incident, and to have a case hanging over them for years adds to their stress.”
The Crown Office launched a health and safety division in 2009 to bring greater expertise to the area.
CARDINUS Risk Management has been awarded ISO 27001 accreditation for the provision of risk assessment and e-learning software, training, services and consultancy in connection with the safety risk management market.
Cardinus, which is based in the UK, provides risk assessment and e-learning software, training systems and consultancy services to more than two million users worldwide. Data management is at the core of many Cardinus services and it is the analysis and application of health and safety data that makes Cardinus solutions so effective.
It provides safety and risk management systems to some of the world’s largest companies as well as many public sector entities. These organisations demand and dictate best practice in the key areas of health and safety and data management and protection.
Andy Hawkes, CEO of Cardinus Risk Management, said, “We are delighted to have gained this accreditation as managing personal and corporate data is a core competency that many companies in our sector fail to understand. We wanted to become one of the world’s first safety organisations to hold this accreditation as evidence of our total commitment to information security.”
Implementing the ISO27001 standard ensures that an organisation formally specifies a management system intended to bring information security under explicit management control. It is recognised throughout the globe as best practice.
Barbara Snape, IT director at Cardinus, said, “This has been a major project with all parts of our systems, processes and procedures reviewed, revised and scrutinised to exacting standards. This is an absolute sign of our commitment to delivering products and services that meet the highest levels of security at all times.”
Cardinus Risk Management has been producing and supplying risk management services and e-learning courses since 1995. Its customers include many of the world’s leading organisations, a large number of small and medium-sized organisations and central government departments.
“I hear so many companies that say health and safety is their number-one priority,” the HSE chair Judith Hackitt told a packed plenary session at the IOSH 13 Conference.
“Health and safety needs to become a core value in all businesses. Whether it has to become a bigger priority in its own right, I would really question.”
Speaking as part of a panel discussion on what action is needed over the coming 12 months to make health and safety a bigger priority across all industries, Ms Hackitt painted a very pragmatic picture of health and safety management for the year ahead, both within her own organisation and the myriad businesses it regulates.
She insisted that the regulatory framework is fit for purpose and that its reform work in this area is simply about “stripping out the duplication and the overlap”. When it comes to guidance, however, the HSE is focused on making it more accessible because “the easier you make things, the greater the compliance and the better the performance”.
Dr G Todd Wright, managing director of Sellafield, agreed, but added that priorities for businesses change and often get influenced by other priorities. He highlighted leadership, communication and training as the three core elements in health and safety that will help his business prepare for a crucial period of decommissioning nuclear facilities.
Dr Karl-Ulrich Kohler, CEO and managing director of Tata Steel, adopted a different stance, insisting that there is no discrepancy between saying health and safety is a priority and the realities of the business. He suggested that the reason his company describes health and safety as a priority is for communication. He said: “It’s not a question about motives. The one thing you can’t replace is health and the wellbeing of people. They are our strength and we need to protect them.”
If you are new to health and safety, the Health and Safety Executive(HSE) have published step-by-step guides to help.
The HSE wants everyone at work to be healthy and safe – bringing money and other benefits to your business.
Health and safety is relevant to all businesses. So, if you are an employer – or are self employed – you are responsible for the health, safety and welfare of employees and any others who may be affected by what you do. This includes employees, casual or part time workers, trainees, customers, neighbours, sales people and members of the public.
If you need the key started tips, visit the HSE website, for more information on where to start and how to make health and safety more simple.
Discomfort while driving, trouble sleeping and pain when lifting: back pain can cause everyday activities to become quite a chore. Unfortunately, the majority of people will experience some type of back pain during their lifetime. Often we do not realize we are straining ourselves until it is too late. Even more often, we try to ignore the pain or deal with the symptoms rather than the core problem.
The causes vary widely from case to case. Lower back pain can be caused by strain and overexertion or by herniated or bulging discs. Similar things can cause upper back pain and middle back pain but it is more often times caused by overuse and poor posture. Many try to find back pain relief through exercise and medication, although it is often times not enough. Having a good mattresses and taking time to rest helps most mild cases. However, staying in bed too long can end up making matters worse. When pain persists for long spans of time, many choose to seek medical attention.
Sometimes searching for relief seems hopeless; the following is a compilation of basic information you may find helpful if you suffer from back pain. We have also included information on some of the most popular and best ways to treat your pain.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provide guidance on various workplace health and safety topics.
This week I found an article on how to assess the risks in your workplace.
Five steps to risk assessment
This is not the only way to do a risk assessment, there are other methods that work well, particularly for more complex risks and circumstances.
However, we believe this method is the most straightforward for most organisations.
How to assess the risks in your workplace
Follow the five steps in our leaflet: Five steps to risk assessment
Most people believe that if they are doing ‘anything’ to improve safety and it engages people’s behaviour then they must be implementing ‘Behavioural Safety’. Not always so! There are a number of defining features that separate Behavioural Safety from other methods of safety improvement initiatives.
Behavioural Safety should involve a systematic, improvement intervention; A unique feature of Behavioural Safety is the introduction of a planned schedule of events that combine to create an overall continuous improvement intervention: This planned schedule often begins with briefing sessions for all those work areas and departments that will be involved.
There are so many positive ‘value-added’ results that are within easy grasp of companies who use an effective Behavioural Safety process.
A well designed and implemented Behavioural Safety process should lead to:
Improved levels of quantified safety behaviours: If the workforce has ‘bought-in’ to Behavioural Safety and are actively trying to improve their safety performance, logic again dictates that the levels of safe behaviour will increase. This improvement should also be visible at the workface. For example, people are following procedures, and people are visibly engaging in safe behaviours.
From the 1980’s – early 1990’s Behavioural Safety has quickly become the established method of choice in the war on accidents in the workplace. Its use has enabled many companies to significantly slice through their accident plateau, something that hitherto could only be dreamed of.
A vast body of scientific research testifies to the effectiveness of Behavioural Safety initiatives across a wide range of industries in many countries. Many companies, for example, have experienced 45-76 percent falls in their accident rates within the first six to twelve months of using Behavioural Safety.
Given that 96 percent of all workplace accidents are triggered by unsafe behaviour, most will be aware that reducing accidents and improving safety performance can only be achieved by systematically focusing upon those unsafe behaviours in the workplace.
For example, ducking under or climbing over assembly lines to reach the controls, not re-stocking the PPE store, not reporting machinery defects, etc., are all unsafe behaviours. These are in the direct control of the people engaging in them, and therefore can be targeted for improvement via Behavioural Safety.