Health & Safety

I have been professionally involved in Health and Safety for nearly 10 years and have found it a fascinating subject — although many people seem to think I want to stop them doing their work or even to shut their business down. As a health and safety advisor I have no intention of doing anything like that. My aim,and that of any health and safety advisor, is to get the job done safely — without risks to the health of either employees or customers, or anyone else for that matter.

I also find that friends have be come much more safety conscious since I became involved in health and safety. If we go out for a meal to a restaurant we have not used be fore I quite often find myself bom barded with questions and com ments like; "Should that fire exit door have a table in front of it?" "Would you look at that electric socket with all those adapters in it — it is red hot."

As you can imagine that starts to raise all sorts of other questions. "How would we get out of here if there was a fire?" "If the fire exit is blocked — what about the fire ex tinguishers? Are there any and can the staff get to them if they were needed?" And "What about the fire detectors in the kitchen — have they been deactivated?"

At this point I am starting to say "Look 1 only came out for a meal!"

Health and safety issues affect us all, ivhether in our oiun place of work or using public areas such as restaurants staff retraining time or any other way of preventing it happening

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Is your attitude to health and safety the same as that restaurant owner? Do you think of health and safety at work as one of those bor ing subjects that the Government has foisted on you, only one stage better than completing Tax returns? Or are you too busy to think about health and safety? &)me people say it is too expensive to comply with the legislation.

Well think again. If you think implementing control measures is expensive just consider the cost of an accident to one of your employ ees. The obvious costs are the lost time while first aid is given, or worse a trip to the hospital or re pairs to broken equipment.

But what about the costs for in creased insu ranee premiums,inves tigation time, claims from the in jured person or their family, bad publicity and the resulting loss of business, salary costs for the absent employee and possibly temporary again, possibly even fines if a seri ous breach of legislation occurred.

It makes good business sense to prevent, or reduce accidents. For small businesses having one em ployee off work can be a big per centage of the work force.

Many people think that Health and Safety legislation is a new thing, yet another innovation of the EU. But this is not the case. Health and Safety Legislation has been around for a while. There are records of health & .safety legisla tion in Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

There was an occupational health system for the workers who built the pyramids AND they were given a pension if they were unable to work as a result of an accident.The Old Testament in the Bible contains reference to needing protection on the roof edges of houses to protect people from falls from height and it also gives the penalty if the main breadwinner of the family was killed or prevented from work ing again. Really not much differ ent from today. Accidents in the construction industry account for a large proportion, over 40%, of the accidents reported to the enforcing authorities — and that is only the reported ones, the actual number could be much higher.

People don't report accidents for a variety of reasons, including:

• They are embarrassed or feel a bit silly

• Some injuries are considered a part of the job

• No-one told them the accident reporting procedures

• They don't want to report an ac cident in case the rest of the team

There are records of health & safety legislation in Egyptian Hieroglyphs...

lose a bonus.

Just before the Piper Alpha disas ter one of the mechanics on the rig had an accident and broke a bone in his arm. However his team were due to complete their shift in a cou ple of days time and were,officially, accident free. As a consequence they were all due to get a substan tial bonus; the foreman's was to be several thousands of pounds.So the mechanic completed his shift, with a broken arm, went home and re ported to his local hospital and Piper Alpha's accident rate remained unchanged and unchallenged.

So my message to employees would be: Report all work related accidents — and if you sec some thing you think is an 'accident wait ing to happen'report that as well. It will give your employer a chance to fix it before something serious happens.