News
August 2011
IOSH is campaigning to highlight the message that good health and safety can mean savings for both the business sector and the public purse. It is offering resources to help businesses save cash and., in the process, keep their workforce healthy and safet and stay on the right side of the law. Head of campaign Caroline Patel at IOSH says "Health and Safety couldn’t be further from the old ’burden on business’ stereotype. Today’s professionals understand that good health and safety management goes to the heart of business - done well, it can not only cut costs but improve productivity, quality, retention, motivation and reputation".
The Life Savings campaign can be found at www.iosh.co.uk/lifesavings
May 2011
173 work related deaths were reported to the UK HSE and local authorities between 1 April and 31 December 2010. This is up on the statistics from 2009/10 when 152 people were fatally injured at work. (This equates to 0.5 deaths per 100,000 workers) Excluded from the data are road traffic accidents and workers travelling by air, sea or rail and the armed forces.
According to the 2011 NEBOSH Jobs Barometer in the UK, anyone looking for a health and safety job without suitable qualifications ’need not apply’. 97 out of 100 nationally advertised health and safety vacancies specified an appropriate level qualification or professional status. In 93 cases, a NEBOSH qualification and/or Technician Membership of IOSH or higher was specified. It also revealed that 62% of advertised positions included responsibility for environmental management.
April 2011
Asbestos could be present in any building that was built or refurbished before the year 2000. Search the house using asbestosvision to see where asbestos could be hiding. A link to the HSE UK asbestosvision click here
March 2011
Story on thw BBC World site, 8th March 2011:
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is proposing to reduce unannounced workplace inspections by a third, the BBC has learned. A leaked letter from the HSE outlines plans to withdraw inspections from entire sectors of industry, including some where "significant risk" remains.
The organisation is facing a 35% cut in its government grant, leading to concerns for workplace safety.The HSE said no final decision had been made.
Full story can be obtained by clicking here
February 2011
The British Horse Society (BHS) have launched a website for people to report horse-related accidents, with the aim of gatherhing information that can be used to campaign for better conditions for equestrians. Anyone involved in any equestrian-related incident, such as road accident, slippery road surface, dangerous dog, low flying aircraft etc,can report the details on the new dedicated site.
The site also offers a wide range of advice on preventing accidents, with additional resources such as posters and leaflets available to download.
Visit the site at www.horseaccidents.org.uk
NEBOSH 2010 results just out - all 7 delegates passed - well done to all of you.
The Health and Safety Inspectorate welcome Joanna Knight to the team. Joanna replaces Lee McGurty, who left the Department at the end of October 2010.
November 2010
Two court cases took place this month :
Firstly, on Monday 15 November, the States of Jersey were fined £40,000 and ordered to pay £10,000 in legal costs after a deckhand lost all the toes of his right foot in an accident on the Duke of Normandie tug.
Robert Le Voguer, who had worked on the tug since 2002, spent five weeks in hospital after his foot was crushed in equipment being used to drag rope and line onto the boat in April 2008. During these five weeks he endured 12 operations, removing his toes as they failed to recover from the crush and a graft was taken from his thigh to cover part of the foot that was also lost. His balance has been affected and it is not clear if he will be able to work at sea again. He has been left in chronic pain and, nearly 3 years later, is still undergoing medical treatment to make him more comfortable. He has returned to shore based work on a part time basis.
The States Employment Board had pleaded not guilty in April of this year, taking it to trial in October 2010, where, after a 3 day hearing, they were found guilty of failing to provide a safe system of work under the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law. At the Royal Court sentencing, Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith said ’we conclude that the defendant has fallen well short of the appropriate standard’. He added that health and safety was not just land based, and even greater care should be taken at sea to ensure the safety of the crew.
This was the second time in five years of operating that the States Employment Board have been fined for breach of health and safety. On the first occasion, last year, the board was fined £10,000 after failing to notify contractors working on a Housing Department site that asbestos was present when it knew it to be the case.
Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith ordered the board to pay the £40,000 fine as a clear message that health and safety laws should be taken very seriously.
Secondly, Jubillee Scaffodling Company Ltd were fined £25,000 in the Royal Court on Wednesday 17 November and ordered to pay £2,000 in costs after admitting failure to comply with Health and Safety.
A pedestrian had stepped out of a scaffolding structure on a building at 40 Esplanade in December 2009 to allow people walking towards her to pass by. When she moved onto the pavement outside the building, she was struck by a falling scaffold pole, leaving her with a fractured collar-bone, as well as delayed psychological effects after the accident.
Director of Health and Safety, Colin Myers, said that the public should never be placed at risk of having scaffolding or fittings falling on them and that the department would now be writing to all scaffolding companies, reminding them of their duties under the law and suggesting they review their practices and procedures to ensure compliance.
October 2010
Maritime safety
New rules are set to be in place next year to ’name and shame’ shipping companies who perform badly in safety inspections by being added to a publicly available register. They will also be subject to more intensive inspections. Under the new risk-based inspection regime, all ship safety inspections carried out in ports in the EU (over 1,000) will be tracked by a new systerm operated by the European Maritime Safety Agency. This will give companies a ’risk profile’ according to the result of their inspections. It is felt more transparency in this sector will showcase companies with strong safety records and put poor per formers in the spotlight to pressure them into compliance.
Gardeners link to Legionnaires
Gardeners are being warned about the risk of Legionnaire’s disease from compost, after a pensioner developed the disease after handling some. The 67-year-old ended up in intensive care after being infected through a cut to his hand which he got while using a trowel, the Lancet reported. He has now fully recovered from the rare form of the disease. But doctors said precautions could be taken and medics should be aware, so it can be quickly diagnosed. The man, described as previously fit and healthy and a "keen gardener", was struck down by a serious fever in March. Doctors saw him in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, central Scotland, after eight days of trembling, confusion, lethargy and shortness of breath, but initially failed to diagnose the problem.
Risk : It was not until he had an invasive procedure where the lung is washed out to obtain a sample that Legionnaire’s was identified. He tested positive for Legionella longbeachae, a rare form which cannot be detected through normal tests.
Legionnaire’s disease is normally caused by the bug Legionella pneumophili, which lives naturally in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, and can also be found in man-made structures containing water such as air conditioning systems. In the UK, just nine cases have been reported since 1984. However, it is much more common in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, where it accounts for about 30% of all cases of Legionnaire’s disease and has been linked to gardening.
Dr Simon Patten, who treated the patient at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, said: "I think doctors and gardeners need to be aware of this. The risk may be low, but precautions can be taken." The Royal Horticultural Society acknowledged Legionnaire’s was a risk, but called for a "common-sense approach".
It recommends wearing gloves, not opening composts bags with your head right over them and folding the top of the bags over when they are not in use. It said gardeners may also want to consider wearing dust masks when turning composts heaps.
September 2010
A good response to the Occupational Health in Construction poster campaign - over 600 companies directly connected to this sector received a copy of each poster (English, Portuguese, Polish) and over 20% of website visits were specific to the information on our site.
We will be adding to the poster pdf downloads with more generic types throughout the rest of this year.
August 2010
A copy of the Health and Safety Inspectorate’s 2009 Annual Report can be obtained as pdf by clicking here
May 2010
Trial date set for States Employment Board
On the 23rd April 2010, the States Employment Board (SEB) appeared before the Royal Court to answer to a charge under Article 3 of the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989, which places a duty on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of their employees at work.
SEB’s appearance in court arose as a result of an investigation into an accident which occurred on the 22nd April 2008 where a Leading Deckhand working on the States Tug, the Duke of Normandy, sustained a serious crush injury to his right foot whilst working a rope on a hydraulic winch. The injury resulted in all the toes of his right foot having to be amputated.
SEB did not admit the charge so a trial date has been set for 5-7 October 2010.
May 2010 - News from IOSH conference
War zone safety
How do you convince war-zone journalists that health and safety is relevant to them? Former reporter Alison Wright Reid, now health and safety manager for Ofcom, told IOSH delegates about her experience of this issue when working for the BBC. She observed that "health and safety started in war" - in fact, HMS Victory was riddled with health and safety measures, even down to the colour of the paintwork to prevent friendly fire. But until recently there was a sense of ’journalistic immunity’ that gave reporters a culture of risk-acceptance alongside their moral sense of a need to bear witness in the thick of battle.
The need for a safety culture intensified with the use of media as a weapon in places like Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, where journalists became as much of a target as the armed forces. Alison described the ’moral epithany’ of a BBC executive during the siege of Dubrovnik, which led to health and safety being priortised over everthing else - and how tapping into the ’tribal culture’ of news journalists meant that any safety measures that were adopted spread quickly - even among reporters from competing channels.
In conclusion she revealed that most war journalists are not actually killed in the ’fog of war’. Instead, they are targeted by people who want to silence them - so health and safety focuses heavily on how they can tell if they’re being stalked.
Festival safety
Tim Roberts spoke of managing health and safety at Glastonbury Festival - how to ensure 175,000 revellers come to no harm. Tim has been in charge of this operation for 10 years. In a ’city with no permanent infrastructure’ where people come to escape normality, his team need to ’make craziness happen safely’.
He spoke of how his work with local police and emergency serivices had paid dividends, in terms of festival safety and shared expertise, many local authorities are now recognised for their knowledge of handling this type of event. Preparation is a year-round process and each festival is reviewed as soon as it has been dismantled. Along with his team of 14 health and safety officers, the festivals 25,000 strong workforce are casual staff, including students, who work for the price of their ticket and who all need training to work safely in Glastonbury’s unique atmosphere.
Tim had plenty of examples to illustrate the success of his collaborative approach to health and safety. A photo of a van plastered with hand-painted health and safety signs, belonging to a Welsh anarchist who works at the festival every year, showed that Tim is getting his message across.
However, the most striking mark of success was that at last year’s festival, there were just four reportable injures.
Disasters - learning the lessons for a safer world
Many people gathered to meet author David Eves at the launch of the latest IOSH book, Disasters: learning the lessons for a safer world.
This book looks at more than 90 accidents, incidents and safety failures over the last 200 years. It gives background information on each incident, looking at what happened and why, befrore exploring wider consequences and implications.
David said "every inquiry into a major diaster demands that lessons should be learned, but all too often, they are soon forgotten and the same mistakes are repeated again and agaain. This book includes sotries of success as well as failure.
April 2010
WORLD HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK DAY APRIL 28TH
Despite the UK having one of the best health and safety records in the world, there were still 180 workplace fatalities in Britain in 2008/09. Many more die as a result of diseases incurred when they are working. Every year, for example, there are around 4,000 cancer deaths due to past exposure to asbestos. And every working day, over 400 people are seriously injured at work. Accidents and ill health are estimated to cost society £20 billion a year. But it’s virtually impossible, of course, to measure the human suffering involved.
UK Health and Safety Record
1.2 million people who worked during the last year 2008/9 were suffering from an illness (long standing as well as new cases) they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work. 551 000 of these were new cases.
180 workers were killed at work, a rate of 0.6 per 100 000 workers.
131 895 other injuries to employees were reported under RIDDOR, a rate of 502.2 per 100 000 employees.
246 000 reportable injuries occurred, according to the Labour Force Survey, a rate of 870 per 100 000 workers.
29.3 million days were lost overall (1.24 days per worker), 24.6 million due to work-related ill health and 4.7 million due to workplace injury.
These figures do not include work road-related deaths and injuries.
March 2010
On the 5 March 2010, amendment No. 4 to the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law, 1989, which was passed by the States on the 12th May 2009, was registered in the Royal Court after being sanctioned by Her Majesty.
This amendment, to Article 3 of the law, has clarified the need for employers to carry out risk assessments to ensure the health and safety of their employees.
It also requires the findings of the assessments of significant risks to be recorded and the written health and safety policy to be in a language which will be understood by all employees of an employer.
February 2010
PAT testing. To test or not to test. The Health and Safety Inspectorate have kindly agreed for us to add their guidance note on this subject to our site and is available under Links and Downloads.
December 2009
Blind daredevil back’s HSE campaign.
A disabled extreme sport enthusiast has lent his support to HSE’s common sense health and safety pledge.
He has abseiled down a 100 metre waterfall with an inspector from the HSE’s Adventure Activities Licensing Authority Management Group.
It’s part of the ongoing battle to stop the ’elf and safety’ stories that blame various activities being banned.
Dean Dunbar says ’If you really want to do something, the only thing holding you back is you - not non existent health and safety legislation’.
The website gives you further information about Dean, about the extreme sports he has undertaken, lists the companies he has used that have good health and safety committment, plus takes a look at some of the weirdest forms of ’extreme sports’.
Visit extreme dreams here
November 2009
The Jersey Fire & Rescue Services will be running the Fire training from next year.
The Fire Awareness course has been updated and anyone who has attended this cousrse in the last 3 years can automatcially book either of the other two.
New courses are - Fire Marhsal - Fire Extinguisher
Launching in April 2010, they will be run twice monthly, with the fire awareness a.m., then alternate afternoons for the marshal and extinguisher trianing.
To book a place call 01534 445933 or email communityfiresafety@gov.je
November 2009
ACAS, The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service in the UK, has released a booklet entitled ’Health, Work and wellbeingt’. It seeks to clarify the interaction between health and wellbeing at work, focusing on the relationships between the line managers and employees, importance of getting employees involved and job design, flexible working and the use of occupational health.
The six indicators of a healthy workplace they list as:
1. Line Managers are confident and trained in people skills
2. Employees feel valued and involved in the organisation
3. Managers use occupational health and other services where appropriate to help people get back to work
4. Managers promote an attendance culture by conducting return to work discussions
5. Jobs are flexible and well designed
6. Managers know how to manage common health problems such as mental health and musculoskeletal disorders
To read the booklet in full click here
July 2009
The States of Jersey were fined £10,000 in the Royal Court on Friday 31 July for putting two workers were exposed to asbestos during work on the redevelopment of the Clos de Roncier estate.
The court heard that the offence came to light after a resident, who had prior knowledge of asbestos removal, highlighted the danger in February (2008). Also in the dock was Coastline PVCu Products Ltd, contracted by the Housing Department to carry out the works.
Week 20 July
JSC urge firms to be more proactive in health and safety to avoid unwanted prosecution. To view the press release click here
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June 2009
Congratulations to the latest candidates taking the NEBOSH certificate in Jersey. 5 passes with credit.
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Stories seem to be coming thick and fast in the papers about health and safety bureaucracy and bans. Latest is risk assessment for the coastguard service prior to leaving on an emergency. The HSE has a good cartoon it calls ’Myth of the Month’ which is always good to check out. www.hse.gov.uk/myth
On the subject of bans, in actual fact little has been banned. It is about taking practical steps to manage real risk, the only thing banned is asbestos.