Tag Archives: procedures

Don’t fall silent intiative

Posted on by

An excellent and very important initiative from IOSH: The “Don’t Fall Silent” campaign addresses a critical and persistent issue in workplace safety. The focus on prevention and cultural change is particularly vital, as falls from height remain a leading cause of workplace fatalities, as the HSE’s provisional figures sadly confirm.

Here’s a brief summary of the campaign’s key messages and why each point is so crucial:

  • Planning: This is the foundation of all safe work. IOSH’s emphasis on only working at height when “absolutely necessary” aligns with the risk hierarchy of control. The best way to prevent a fall is to eliminate the need to work at height in the first place.
  • Competence: Proper training is essential, but a key element of this is ensuring workers are not just trained but also competent and confident in applying that training. Supervision is critical to ensuring that knowledge is put into practice correctly.
  • Equipment: The campaign highlights the need for not just having the right equipment but also ensuring it’s properly maintained. A harness or a guardrail system that isn’t inspected and in good condition can be as dangerous as having no equipment at all.
  • Culture: This is arguably the most challenging and most important aspect of the campaign. A positive safety culture is one where safety is seen as a shared value, not just a set of rules. When workers feel “empowered to speak up,” it means the organization values their input and won’t penalize them for raising concerns, which is a major factor in preventing accidents.
  • Collaboration: This point recognizes that safety is a collective effort. It’s not just the employer’s responsibility. It involves contractors, designers, suppliers, and regulatory bodies all working together to share knowledge and create a safer environment for everyone.

The campaign’s title, “Don’t Fall Silent,” is a powerful call to action that resonates with the need to actively and openly address these risks rather than accepting them as an unavoidable part of high-risk work. It’s a proactive approach that is well aligned with modern health and safety management.

Records form part of your arrangements

Communicate wisely – Health and Safety investigations dig deep

Posted on by

Keep your communications professional and make sure you know where they are stored. Useful tips if you are ever on the sharp end of an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). 

Section 20 of the Health and Safety at Work act 1974 gives the HSE the power to “require any person to produce any books or documents… which are necessary for you to see for the purposes of your investigation”. 

This seems entirely reasonable if there has been an accident or incident worthy of an investigation, and indeed should be welcomed, not least for valuable lessons learnt. But, as an employer or employee, have you ever considered exactly what documents the HSE might be requiring from you, and have you thought how and where they should be stored so that you can comply easily with an inspector’s request? 

Most employers are aware where they store their Health and Safety policy, risk assessments and minutes of meetings such as safety forums or committees. But do you know where your WhatsApp safety chat is stored and uploaded? Could you put your hands on that memo on the intranet that updated the latest safety data sheet? 

More importantly, do you have good knowledge of any communication between your employees on Health and Safety issues which may be informally recorded in texts or emails without any consideration being given to them being read in “hindsight”.

Our basic advice is:  

  • Keep essential Health and Safety documents in one, easily accessed place, whether physically or online 
  • Be aware that your documents and communications may be subject of inspection and keep them current. 
  • Make sure you are actually doing what your documents say you do – if not, change your actions or the documents…  
  • Ensure your workforce are aware that their communications could one day be looked at by an external body and remind them to think before communicating and keep it strictly professional. Don’t forget that can include texts, chats, emails and social media posts. 

 For help and advice on any of your Health and Safety issues contact us. 

Leave safety systems to chance?

Posted on by

An article in today’s IOSH news relates to the perils of allowing workers to make their own decisions about correct procedures for working on site.

As a company manager or director you are responsible for the undertakings of your workers – it will probably say so in your policy.  If one of your workers is allowed to start using plant that they are not trained to use, then what could happen next is up to you as mentioned above.  Crucially, will you do anything about it or let it go?

Normal health and safety arrangements such as risk assessment, safe systems of work, training and supervision are simple to implement when an organisation believes in the process.  However, we often see resistance to sensible arrangements being implemented and the reasons for failing to do so will range from lack of knowledge, peer-pressure, cost, perceived difficulty and insufficient time.  We have to believe that no one truly sets out to work in a dangerous way day after day but the perception of risk and the odds of it going wrong, when left to workers alone, can unfortunately have tragic results when an individual’s gamble doesn’t work out.

Its fine to gamble with money (that you can afford to lose) but its not acceptable to have workers gamble with each others lives and limbs, especially when they are working for you.  Workers are seldom qualified to make real risk judgments and will often make flawed assumptions about risk and consequences.

What might have started as a light touch regime with the company mentioned in the article to become a free for all without controls.

If you would like pragmatic advice about safety systems that you and your workers can apply on sites that you are responsible for then get in touch.  Or maybe its worth the gamble that nothing will go wrong … ?