Category Archives: News

Although only 10% of all driving is done at night, a staggering 40% of collisions occur during the hours of darkness*.

Driving conditions are remarkably different in the night time, vision is reduced and it can be more difficult to see vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. If your workers are driving at times when they would usually be asleep then they are in much greater danger of falling asleep behind the wheel.

With the clocks going back an hour at the end of this month, now is a good time to remind all your employees to take extra care.  This can be achieved by simply sending an email or forwarding this newsletter onto your colleagues, or placing it on your noticeboard. However you do it, be sure to include the following tips:

– Check head and tail lights are in good working order and are clean

– Check the main beam function is working

– Allow slightly longer times to complete your journey and factor in breaks

– Allow extra distance between you and the car in front

*Statistics from ROSPA website.

For some workers pushing and pulling is all part of a days work, but how safely is this type of work activity being carried out?  This month saw C&C involved in an investigation into a tragic crushing injury which resulted in an amputation due to the poor exection of a pushing and pulling operation.

Conducting a thorough risk assessment of any pulling and pushing activity is essential.  Building on the HSE’s Manual Handling Assessment Charts (MAC Tool), the HSE has developed the risk assessment Pulling & Pushing Tool (RAPP) INDG478.  Aimed at helping those responsible for health and safety in workplaces, the tool will help with identifying high-risk pushing and pulling operations and will check the effectiveness of any risk-reduction measures.

There are two types of pushing and pulling operations that can be assessed with it:

• moving loads on wheeled equipment, such as hand trolleys, pump trucks, carts or wheelbarrows (Section A)
• Moving loads without wheels, which might involve actions such as dragging/sliding, churning (pivoting and rolling) and rolling (Section B).

For each type of operation there is a flow chart, an assessment guide and a score sheet.
The flow charts provide an overview of the risk factors and assessment process while the assessment guides provide information to help you determine the level of risk for each factor.

Click here to access a free copy of the RAPP tool.  If you would like advice and support on using it within your workplace, don’t forget your consultant will be happy to help.

Over recent years there have been big improvements in reducing the number and rate of injuries to construction workers. What has been less recognised is that construction is a high risk industry for health issues too.

This summer sees the release of HSE’s new ‘Health in Construction – The Facts’ poster on work-related ill health amongst construction workers in Great Britain. The poster visualises the key information in an info-graphic style, allowing health and safety professionals to easily educate their workforce about the scale and consequences of poor health management in the construction industry.

Make sure you share this information with your workforce. Use it to:

• Convey the importance of good health & safety management
• Demonstrate organisational commitment to improve the current picture
• Encourage employees to take personal responsibility for their own health
• Refresh health & safety notice boards with relevant messages
• Start conversations on how you can improve things together

Employers breaking health and safety law will have to pay enforcement costs at £129 per hour, up from £124 per hour, the rate the scheme launched with in October 2012.

It comes after the HSE’s annual Report 2015/16 was published showing Fee for Intervention is costing more to run that it can recover. Income from the scheme was £14.7m in 2015/16 but the cost was £17.4m, bringing in a deficit of £2.7m.

FFI was brought in under the Health and Safety (Fees) Regulation 2012, placing a duty on the HSE to recover their costs for enforcing health and safety laws from offending companies. Those companies seeking to meet their health and safety duties and being able to demonstrate their commitment will have little concern over this increase, however for those that ignore their duties the cost of doing so and being caught could now be even greater.

C&C Consulting are here to assist you in developing and meeting your duties in health and safety law, and can provide a positive approach to avoiding the costs of FFI. Contact your consultant if you would like to know more.

A school in Brentwood pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety regulations after a worker was injured as he fell from a roof. A 63 year old employee was working on the roof of the bay window when his foot got caught and he fell approximately 2.6 metres to the ground below. He was taken to hospital and suffered injuries including a broken collarbone and chipped vertebrae. To read the full story you can access the link here.

C&C Training our sister company run a Working at Height course including the Safe Use of Steps and Ladders, which includes safe use of equipment and how to identify the root cause of accidents. For details on the course click on working at height. If you need advice on how to minimise working at height accidents, then please contact our Health and Safety consultancy team.

A revised British standard on the safe use of construction hoists to transfer people and materials between different levels on construction sites has been issued by BSI, the British Standards Institution.

BS 7212 has been updated to reflect developments to industry and HSE guidance on the use of hoists since the previous version was issued in 2006. It includes additional and expanded requirements for the maintenance, inspection and thorough examination of hoists, and the training and competence of hoist installers and operators has also been expanded.

It can be purchased by clicking here.

The image of two children crossing the road has been updated and re-drawn and will start appearing on roads over the next year. The designer claims the new-look sign is a radical change from the original, but many drivers will be hard pushed to notice the differences.

Look closely though and you will see several changes including a new, modern bobbed hairstyle for the girl, more defined hands and a more natural join between boy and girl.

An informationn pack for engaging and informing workers about the health risks of exposure to silica dust has been issued as part of IOSH’s No Time to Lose occupational cancer campaign. The pack includes factsheets, posters, leaflets, presentations and a quiz providing advice on how to avoid exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS) dust. The issue is one of five agents associated with work-related cancer that IOSH is raising awareness of through its No Time to Lose campaign. It can be found at notimetolose.org.uk

A video warning scaffolders and those working on scaffolds of the dangers posed by working too close to overhead power lines has been produced by UK Power Networks, which owns and operates power lines across the south and east of England. Work Safe – Think Electricity provides advice on how to identify overhead electricity lines; the importance of assessing the risks; and how to maintain a safe working distance. The video can be found under ‘safety films’ by clicking here.

The EU referendum is just a few weeks away. On 23rd June 2016, the UK public will vote on whether to remain within the EU or to leave. Our Head of Health and Safety, Matt St John, takes a look at the possible implications the vote could have on Health and Safety legislation.

“Working in the health and safety profession it’s vital to ensure we are aware of future legislative implications on health and safety in the UK. This referendum has the potential to be a huge shake up of health and safety laws in England, whichever way the dice may fall.

Some Health and Safety professionals may be tipping more towards remaining in the EU in order to protect the workforce in the fear that new UK derived rules may have the potential to be trial and error with deaths/injuries being a resulting factor. No guarantees are given, obviously!

There is a huge amount though who have yet to decide, meaning the vote can swing either way. Re-negotiations are promised to bring discussions of relaxing the burden of health and safety compliance on businesses if we decide to remain in the EU.

Potentially there could be massive benefits for employers if it swings to leave, the promoters of Brexit say this would mean less bureaucracy and restrictions on employers. There are a vast amount of health and safety laws which are either directly or indirectly imposed by the European Union, as some UK statutory legislation was created for the purpose of complying with an EU Directive.

Of course, nothing would happen overnight. Even if we vote out, there would be an evaluating period in which existing EU legislation would remain, during this it would be down to our Government to decide which bits to keep, which to amend and which to scrap entirely (if they so wished). Over the next few years to come, the general way in which health and safety is managed could look very different. Brexit says ‘common sense’ will prevail in re-shaping changes, then again, nothing is guaranteed and this we are sure of!

The key point in all of this for those that operate in the health and safety arena, is that whatever the legal framework becomes, it does not become a ‘political point scoring tool’, with focus lost on its intended purpose: to take care of the health, safety and welfare of all persons in the workplace, prevent deaths, injuries and ill health whilst at work”.