Category: Health & Safety

You must ensure compliance with all relevant health and safety regulations as a business owner. A failure to comply may result in severe fines and penalties, as well as creating an unsafe working environment.

It is important to be aware of a few key things in order to keep your business compliant.

• You must have a comprehensive health and safety policy in place. This policy should outline the specific measures you take to protect your workers and the consequences for violating the policy. You should ensure that all of your employees know the procedure and understand their roles in upholding it.
• You need to ensure that your workplace is free from hazards. This means regularly assessing the workspace and taking steps to address any potential risks.
• You should also provide your employees with proper safety training and equipment to safely perform their duties.
• Finally, you must have procedures for dealing with incidents and accidents. This includes documenting all incidents, investigating their causes, and taking appropriate corrective action.

Following these steps can help keep your workplace safe and compliant with health and safety regulations.

What Is Health and Safety Compliance?

Health and safety compliance refers to following the rules and regulations related to health and safety in the workplace. Among these are wearing the appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), using safe work practices, and understanding emergency procedures. Compliance is important because it helps to protect workers from injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. In addition, it helps to create a safe and efficient work environment.

By following health and safety procedures, businesses can avoid liability issues, reduce insurance costs, and improve employee morale. When everyone understands and complies with the health and safety guidelines, it benefits everyone involved.

The Benefits of Health and Safety Compliance

Compliance with health and safety standards offers a wealth of benefits for businesses, employees and customers. Perhaps most importantly, compliance helps ensure employees’ safe working environment. Companies can help protect their workers from serious injuries by minimising potential risks and hazards. In turn, this can lead to increased productivity and morale and reduced absenteeism and turnover. Compliance with health and safety standards also helps businesses avoid costly fines and lawsuits.

Furthermore, it can improve their reputation and make them more attractive to prospective customers and clients. In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, those seen as being committed to the health and safety of their employees are likely to have an advantage over those not. Ultimately, compliance with health and safety standards is good for businesses, employees, and customers.

How To Achieve Health and Safety Compliance

Compliance with health and safety standards is essential for any business. However, it can be challenging to know where to start. Therefore, all companies should take a few key steps to ensure compliance:

1. Assess the risks associated with your specific business and industry. This will help you to identify the areas where compliance is most important.
2. Develop policies and procedures to address these risks.
3. Ensure that all employees know these policies and procedures and understand their role in maintaining compliance.
4. Regularly monitor compliance levels and make changes as necessary.

By taking these steps, you can ensure that your business is meeting all relevant health and safety standards.

The Consequences of Not Achieving Health and Safety Compliance

The consequences of not achieving health and safety compliance can be significant. Fines and penalties are common, and businesses that do not follow regulations can be closed down. Additionally, employees who are injured or become sick due to unsafe working conditions may sue the company for damages. This can lead to substantial financial losses and damage to the reputation of a business.

Finally, the individuals responsible for health and safety compliance may also be personally liable. Therefore, businesses must ensure that they comply with all relevant regulations.

How To Develop a Health and Safety Compliance Plan

Every business should develop a health and safety compliance plan. Understanding the relevant regulations is the first step in developing this plan. Next, to ensure the safety of their workplace, companies should establish policies and procedures to ensure compliance. Training employees on safety protocols is also essential to ensuring workplace safety.

Companies can reduce the risk of accidents and injuries by letting employees know the hazards at work and how to protect themselves. Lastly, companies should regularly inspect their workplace for hazards and take steps to correct any conditions that may be hazardous. In taking these steps, businesses can ensure a safe working environment for their employees and help avoid costly legal penalties.

What Is a Health and Safety Compliance Plan, and Why Do You Need One?

The health and safety compliance plan is a document that outlines a company’s policies and procedures for ensuring a safe workplace. The plan should be tailored to the company’s and its employees’ particular needs and should be reviewed and updated regularly. Incorporating a health and safety compliance plan can result in various benefits. 

• First, it can help managers and employees communicate more effectively about issues related to health and safety. 
• The second benefit is that it provides a framework for identifying and reducing potential workplace hazards. Finally, promoting a shared commitment to safety can also improve the overall safety culture in the company. 
• Overall, a well-crafted health and safety compliance plan can protect employees from injury and illness and lower workers’ compensation claims and related costs.

Developing a Health and Safety Compliance Plan

Every business must comply with health and safety regulations. A health and safety compliance plan describes the policies and procedures that should be in place to comply with these regulations. Identifying potential hazards through a compliance plan and taking steps to mitigate these risks is possible. Business owners can protect their employees and create a safe and productive workplace by developing a comprehensive health and safety compliance program.

Businesses must follow health and safety regulations to ensure the safety of their employees. A health and safety compliance program can provide companies with several advantages, including reduced insurance costs, increased productivity, and reduced liability. However, complying with health and safety regulations can seem complicated. A professional can assist in making this task easier. Businesses must safeguard their employees by complying with health and safety regulations. Failing to do so can have serious repercussions. 

Are you looking for more information on achieving health and safety compliance? Contact us today for more details.

Do you believe that health and safety are not essential aspects of the workplace? If so, think again. Occupational health and safety advisors ensure the health and safety of employees. In addition, they develop policies and procedures to prevent injuries, illnesses, and accidents.

Health and Safety Advisors (Health and Safety Advisers) are professionals who assist organisations in maintaining healthful and safe work environments. They provide employees and employers with safety advice, training, and support.

Health and Safety Advisors play a crucial role in helping ensure that workplaces are safe and that employees are aware of the risks associated with their job. Health and Safety Advisors typically have a background in safety management. As a result, they must understand complex safety information and communicate this information in a way that is easy for employees to understand.

Health and Safety Advisors typically work with a range of organisations, including local authorities, the construction industry, environmental health bodies, safety consultancies and manual handling specialists. They may also be employed by large companies or work as self-employed safety consultants. In short, a Health and Safety Advisor is responsible for promoting and ensuring safety in the workplace (e.g. occupational safety).

This includes creating and implementing up to date health and safety policies, investigating accidents and incidents, conducting risk assessments, and providing training to employers. If you’re interested in pursuing a career as a Health and Safety Adviser or safety consultant, keep reading to learn more about the role and the skills you need to succeed.

Health and Safety Advisor Responsibilities

• Promote and ensure safety in the workplace.

As a Health and Safety Advisor, you’re responsible for helping to keep your company safe for everyone who works there. This includes developing programs to prevent injuries, conducting inspections of equipment and building structures, investigating accidents and incidents, providing training about health and safety dangers, addressing unsafe work behaviours or other concerns. You’ll also take steps to make sure that your workplace complies with all relevant local regulations regarding safety procedures.

• Create policies related to health and safety industry issues within the organisation.

Developing health and safety policies and guidance is one of the key responsibilities of a Health and Safety Advisor. Your policies should be made available to employees at all times and should be regularly reviewed. It’s essential to make sure that they’re comprehensive enough to cover general safety concerns and specific hazards in the workplace.

• Investigate accidents and incidents, conduct risk assessments, and provide training for employees

In the course of your work as a Health and Safety Advisor, you’ll investigate any accidents or injuries that occur within the organisation. You’ll also review danger reports to determine possible risks that need addressing. If necessary, you’ll recommend changes to build structures, equipment, operations procedures or other areas of concern to eliminate hazards. As part of your role at an organisation, you’ll provide relevant training so that employees know what behaviours can keep them safe on the job.

Safety Qualifications Health and Safety Professionals Need

There aren’t specific degree-level qualifications required to work as a health and safety advisor. That being said, you should have a solid understanding of workplace safety legislation and health and safety laws and be committed to learning more about the latest industry trends. It’s helpful if you have a strong knowledge of health and safety regulations in your area or within your industry. You should also be able to demonstrate excellent verbal and written communication skills. Safety advisers should have excellent customer service skills. They must investigate accidents, incidents and near misses, keep records of these incidents and write reports.

• Educated in occupational health and safety

You don’t need an advanced degree to become a Health and Safety Advisor. If you’re already qualified as an occupational health and safety professional, then that’s all the training that you’ll need. However, if your experience is more generalised, you might consider completing a program designed for professionals who are new to the field of OHS. Such courses will provide information about relevant legislation governing workplace health and safety methods for conducting risk assessments. You’ll also learn how to educate employees about hazards in the workplace so that they can take preventative action.

• Familiarity with risk management practices

Successful Health and Safety Advisors need to be familiar with various risk management practices to determine how best to deal with health and safety concerns within their organisation. For example, you’ll need to know about hazard identification and control, incident investigation techniques, accident analysis. This will enable you to accurately identify the root cause of accidents or injuries in your workplace.

• Skilled at communicating

As a Health and Safety Advisor, you’ll spend much of your time training employees about important health and safety hazards that they might not necessarily be aware of or fully understand.

You’ll also play an important role in investigating incidents, so it’s critical that you’re able to communicate effectively with everyone involved—your employer, employees who were involved in the incident or suffered an injury.

Comfortable with conflict resolution Disagreements about health and safety issues can sometimes arise among employees or between employees and management. As a Health and Safety Advisor, you’ll need to handle these types of conflicts professionally so that they don’t escalate into more significant problems. Resolving such issues quickly will help ensure the continuation of a positive work environment for everyone involved.

• Detail-oriented 

Many health and safety incidents can be caused by small details that were overlooked or ignored. As such, a Health and Safety Advisor needs to remain detail-oriented in order to identify these issues early on. Attention to detail will also help you while conducting incident investigations—if you’re not careful, you could miss something important!

• Good time management skills

Health and Safety Advisors need to be good at managing their time since they often have multiple responsibilities throughout the day. You might often find yourself balancing your time between performing risk assessments, communicating with employees about health and safety concerns and investigating incidents. In addition to doing all of this work quickly and efficiently, you should make sure that it’s all completed in a timely manner.

• Organised

In addition to maintaining a level of detail while conducting investigations, Health and Safety Advisors should also be organised to avoid missing anything or losing track of important information. For example, you might have access to sensitive company information as well as personal health and safety details from employees, so it’s important to keep everything organised and secure at all times.

• Ability to work under pressure

As a member of management or leadership, you’ll often find yourself under pressure due to your multiple responsibilities. For example, you might need to address an emergency health and safety issue within your workplace immediately after completing another task, such as conducting a risk assessment. In each case, you should be able to remain calm and handle the situation in a timely manner.

• Accountable

Health and Safety Advisors must be held accountable since you’ll often have access or control over sensitive information about your employer or employees. Your actions will directly affect other people, so it’s essential that you always maintain a high level of accountability to avoid causing unnecessary harm or damage. This is especially true if you accidentally overlook any health and safety issues during risk assessments.

• Discreet

Being discreet as a Health and Safety Advisor is important because much of your work will involve private or personal employee information. You might also regularly deal with sensitive company information such as budgets and customer lists, so you shouldn’t share anything you shouldn’t be sharing.

• Good written and oral communication skills

Employees will often come to you with their health and safety concerns, and it’s your job to address them professionally. If you cannot communicate this information effectively or if an employee does not fully understand the situation, then a lack of resolution might lead to further problems down the line. To avoid such situations, it’s critical that you develop strong written and verbal communication skills since they’re essential for anyone working in management or leadership roles.

• Collaborative

As a Health and Safety Advisor, you should always try to collaborate with other employees when conducting risk assessments or dealing with any issues that arise from these assessments so that you can get multiple perspectives. Even if one person caused an issue, many other factors might have contributed to the situation—for example, another employee might not have checked that everything was safe before starting their shift which led to the problem. You should always try to consider all of these perspectives when dealing with health and safety issues so that your decisions are well-rounded.

• Ability to work under pressure

As a Health and Safety Advisor, there will be times when you’ll need to act quickly to keep employees, customers or equipment safe. This often means that you won’t have time for much planning or preparation before doing something—you need to react, adapt and overcome the situation in real-time. Even your day-to-day tasks such as conducting risk assessments should be handled in a timely manner.

• Good decision-making skills

You might find that you’re required to make important decisions on behalf of your organisation, whether it’s related to health and safety or not. For example, you might need to choose a supplier for a new piece of equipment, affecting all other areas of business operations. You should always try to gather as much information as possible before making a decision so that you have the knowledge necessary to make an informed choice—if you cannot solve the problem yourself, then seek advice from someone else with the relevant expertise involved.

• Creative

A Health and Safety Advisor needs to be creative since there are a number of different things that a Health and Safety Advisor might have to do from one day to the next. You’ll have to think outside of the box to solve problems or overcome challenges, so having a creative mindset is important.

• Good at multitasking

Since you might have many different projects going on simultaneously as a Health and Safety Advisor, being good at multitasking is key. You need to be able to remain organised and focused enough to don’t lose track of what needs your attention most urgently while also being attentive enough to understand why a given individual has brought up a particular health and safety concern.

• Respectful towards others

Being respectful towards other people is essential when working with employees, customers and suppliers. Maintaining good relationships is always helpful since they’ll be more willing to work with you if they like or understand you. No one wants to get on the bad side of their Health and Safety Advisor since that could lead to a number of problems down the line in terms of conducting business effectively.

• Unbiased

It’s important for a Health and Safety Advisor to remain unbiased since they need to consider all health and safety concerns without favouring any specific group of people. Even if a certain individual caused an issue, it’s not your job to punish them—instead, try to find out what happened so that you can prevent similar issues from occurring in the future. Your aim should always be to improve health and safety standards, not to blame or punish people.

• Able to work on own initiative

You might find yourself with many responsibilities as a Health and Safety Advisor, which means that you’ll have a lot on your plate from day-to-day. To stay productive, you need to be able to work on your own initiative to handle everything required by the organisation effectively. Even if someone else has been assigned the task of carrying out a certain assignment, it’s still important for you to follow up since there might be additional steps involved or information required before they can start working properly.

• Good at public speaking

At some point as a Health and Safety Advisor, you’ll probably be called upon to speak in front of an audience to train staff about health and safety measures. This means that you’ll need to feel comfortable speaking in public so that you can give a professional presentation without becoming too nervous or anxious. If necessary, try practising in front of a mirror so that you know what it will look like when someone is recording your presentation or taking notes.

Safety advisers work

Health and Safety Advisors play a crucial role in the working environment of any organisation, ensuring that everyone is safe. If you want to be successful in your new career as a Health and Safety Advisor, it’s important to take the time to learn about how this profession operates so that you can start making an impact right away. When working with employees or customers, always remain respectful while maintaining good relationships at all times. You’ll need to have a creative mindset, which means thinking outside of the box when solving problems or overcoming challenges.

If you’re looking for a new and exciting career, becoming a Health and Safety Advisor could be the perfect next role for you. This profession is essential for any organisation, ensuring that everyone is safe at all times. To be successful in this field, it’s important to take the time to learn about how it operates so that you can start making an impact right away. When working with employees or customers, always remain respectful while maintaining good relationships at all times.

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Are you a highly motivated, enthusiastic and experienced Health and Safety professional looking for new opportunities? Contact us now for further information on health safety advisor jobs.

All employers must protect staff from the health risks of working with display screen equipment (DSE).

The HSE has provided guidance featuring a step-by-step guide to working safely with DSE and covers a range of topics, from workstations and assessments to eyesight testing.

WHAT CAN HAPPEN WITH INCORRECT USE OF DSE:

Incorrect use of DSE or poorly designed workstations or work environments can lead to pain in necks, shoulders, backs, arms, wrists, and hands, as well as fatigue and eye strain.

In addition, the HSE also have guidance on what you and your staff need to know about working with DSE from home.

WORKING WITH DISPLAY SCREEN EQUIPMENT AT HOME:

The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations can apply to staff who:

• work at home on a permanent or long-term basis
• routinely split their time between their workplace and home (sometimes called hybrid working)

Your staff are display screen equipment (DSE) users if they work on DSE daily, for continuous periods of an hour or more.  If you aren’t sure, you can check here if the DSE regulations apply to your staff.

The regulations don’t apply to staff who use DSE occasionally or only for short periods of time at home.

DSE RISK ASSESSMENT

Where the regulations do apply, you should carry out a DSE assessment for individual staff. In most cases you do not need to visit them to carry out the assessment, unless you decide there is a need to do so. Your staff may complete a self-assessment provided they have been given suitable training, for example by explaining how to use an ergonomic checklist or self-assessment tool.

Where staff use DSE in the home and office, the assessment should cover both situations.

Make sure those working at home can achieve a comfortable, sustainable posture. They may not need office furniture or equipment at home to achieve this. But you should check if their own equipment is suitable.

MANAGING THE RISKS

Make sure that you can implement the findings of your assessments for your staff using DSE at home.

Reduce the risks identified by your assessment so far as reasonably practicable. This means balancing the level of risk against the measures needed to control the real risk in terms of money, time or trouble.

Where your DSE workstation assessment indicates you need to take some action, for example providing a piece of DSE equipment, your staff cannot be charged for this.

Keep your DSE arrangements under review, particularly if there have been significant changes.

Check if your existing control measures are sufficient or whether additional steps are needed, for example where your staff report aches, pains or discomfort.

Additional DSE equipment needs

Use your assessment to decide if people need any additional equipment when working at home.

Alongside information provided by the worker, you may need to ask for competent advice. For example, from:

• a suitably trained DSE assessor
• suitable occupational health professional

You should meet additional individual needs so far as reasonably practicable.

TRAINING

You must provide staff with training in the use of their workstation and DSE equipment. This should include advice on achieving good posture, and on good working practices.

Further information:

Working with display screen equipment 

Workstation checklist

The Stress Indicator Tool has recently been updated and expanded to take account of significant changes to working practices, including technical innovations that have altered the ways people work.  The purpose is to explore stress risks that are of most relevance in the context of modern working practices, and to understand how these might be related to mental health outcomes and workforce engagement.

What is the Stress Indicator Tool 2.0

The Health and Safety Executive’s Stress Indicator Tool (SIT) has been updated and expanded in collaboration with the University of Hull. This is to take account of significant changes to working practices, including technological innovations that have altered the ways people work.

The purpose of this development is to explore stress risks that are of most relevance in the context of modern working practices, and to understand how these might be related to mental health outcomes and workforce engagement.

The Stress Indicator Tool is an online survey designed to gather data anonymously from employees, which can be used in the risk assessment element of HSE’s Management Standards approach.

Obtaining and understanding this information helps identify areas to improve to prevent and manage work-related stress.

The reporting functionality is automated, so you don’t have to spend time collating data or inputting the results manually. This helps avoid data entry errors, making the information collected more accurate and reliable. The report then summarises the views and experiences of employees and provides recommendations for future improvements.

The Tool now includes:

• Home/remote working survey: an optional extra to explore stress risks for these workers
• Mental health outcome questions: items from the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-4)
• ISA employee engagement scale: questions to measure workforce engagement levels
• Exclusive benchmarking: measure performance against the sector average

More information can be found here

From April 2022, HSE Inspectors will be visiting woodworking businesses across Great Britain to ensure duty holders know the risks associated with woodworking, including wood dust, and have adequate controls in place to keep workers safe and protect their respiratory health.

Around 12,000 people die every year in the UK from lung diseases linked to past exposure to hazardous substances at work. 

This includes inhalation of wood dust that can cause occupational asthma and, in the case of hardwoods, Sinonasal cancer.

Inspectors will be looking for evidence that employers have considered the control measures required to reduce workers’ exposure to wood dust; workers understand that exposure to wood dust can damage their long-term respiratory health; and that adequate and effective control measures are in place to protect workers from harm.

UPDATED WOODWORKING GUIDANCE AND TOOLS TO MANAGE THE RISK IN YOUR BUSINESS

The HSE released new or revised limits for 13 substances in Jan 2020, and more information can be found here.  

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR EMPLOYERS – Employers have a legal duty to ensure they comply with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH), as amended, to control exposure to wood dust and protect worker’s health.

Further guidance on health and safety in the woodworking industry can be found on the HSE website.

What are HSE Inspectors typically looking for: found out here You can also find out here

It is important to know the HSE are continuing to run their campaign and are following up with checks or site inspections to identify if organisations are controlling the risk from metalworking fluids; the information below will increase your awareness and give you a better understanding of what is required to comply with the guidance.

This hot topic and subsequent checks are anticipated to continue into the New year, as a direct result of increased numbers of associated ill health conditions being recorded. 

What are metalworking fluids and oil mists?

Metalworking fluids (MWFs) – sometimes referred to as suds, coolants, slurry or soap – are water-based fluids used during the machining of metals to provide lubrication and cooling, and to help carry away debris such as swarf and fine metal particles.  They can also help to improve machining performance and prolong the life of the cutting tool, as well as providing corrosion protection for workplace surfaces.

Oil mists form when high pressure fuel oil, lubricating oil, hydraulic oil, or other oil is sprayed through a narrow crack, or when leaked oil connects with a high temperature surface, vaporises, and meets low air temperature. This can happen while the fluids interact with the moving parts during the machining processes. Some oil mist particles are smaller than the eye can see but the danger is still as big!

Health risks of MWFs & Oil Mists

If the mist from oil or MWFs (applied by continuous jets, sprays or via a hand dispenser) are either inhaled, touch unprotected skin, enter wounds or broken skin, or get access to the eyes or mouth – they could affect employee health and lead to several varying illnesses.

Exposure to such fluids can cause irritation of the skin, occupational asthma, bronchitis, irritation of the respiratory tract, general breathing difficulties or in extreme cases, can see individuals develop a serious lung disease called extrinsic allergic alveolitis.

Metalworking fluids that contain water or water-mixes are particularly vulnerable to becoming highly contaminated with harmful bacteria and other micro-organisms.

What precautions should be put in place?

Before any precautions are put in place, a suitable and sufficient survey of mental working fluids must be undertaken. This will detail current and safe exposure levels alongside any cause for concern in relation to staff health and safety.

Other areas to consider:

• Use splash guards, to control splashing and misting.
• Minimise the production of mist and vapour by controlling the volume and rate of delivery of the fluid to the cutting edge of the tool.
• Install enclosures or ventilation to remove / control any mist or vapour produced.
• Inform staff of a recommended time delay before opening the doors on machine enclosures – to ensure that all mist and vapour has been removed by the ventilation before exiting.
• Ensure employees know the reporting process for any damaged or defective splash guards, ventilation hoods or other control equipment.
• Open workroom doors and windows to improve natural ventilation.
• Don’t use compressed air to remove excess fluids from machined parts, plant or other equipment.
• Conduct regular health surveillance checks.

Exposure Limits

In 2005, the Health & Safety Executive withdrew the exposure limit for Metalworking Fluids (set at 1.0mg/m3) due to outbreaks of ill health at a manufacturing facility within the UK. It was found that exposures were successfully being controlled below the exposure limit set at the time, however, workers were still experiencing occupational ill health.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) have set a Recommended Exposure Limit (REL) of 0.5mg/m3, however, levels of exposure below this standard have been found to cause ill health which means that the standards set by various bodies have no relevance to the risk of health.

In the absence of a relevant exposure limit, more emphasis should be put on controlling exposures to MWF’s via good controls and working practices which minimise exposures as low as is reasonably practicable.

It should be noted, that although there may not be a specific exposure limit for the MWF itself a review of the datasheet for the specific product being used should be carried out to identify the need to conduct exposure monitoring for any harmful ingredients with published exposure limits e.g. 2-(2-Butoxyethoxy) ethanol, Monoethanolamine etc

Oil mists are much more straight forward and have an exposure limit currently set at 5mg/m3.

Routine exposure monitoring can ascertain current exposures, identify where further control measures are necessary and allow for comparison against previous assessments to identify improvements.  

Ongoing Biological Monitoring Requirements

The bacterial contamination of fluids and associated machinery and pipework should be monitored and controlled. Direct means of measuring bacterial contamination should be used in conjunction with other checks on fluid quality, e.g., fluid concentration and ph.

Microbiological dip slides are a simple way of checking bacterial contamination. Dip slide checks should be carried out once a week and the frequency reduced only when it can be demonstrated that your fluid quality management is effective.

A dip slide consists of a plastic carrier coated with a sterile culture medium, which is dipped into the liquid to be tested. It is then incubated to allow microbial growth and the resulting colonies are estimated by reference to a chart to indicate the level of bacterial contamination. Results are expressed in terms of colony-forming units per millilitre (CFU/ml) of fluid.

The following values indicate what can be regarded as good, reasonable and poor standards of fluid management, and what action should be taken. Monitoring should be used to confirm your standard of control, as well as indicating increased levels of bacteria at an early stage.

• <10×4 CFU/ml good control. Bacteria are being maintained at low levels. Regular checks and actions to maintain the fluid quality should continue. 
• ≥10×4 to <10×6 CFU/ml Reasonable control. Review and take action to check the quality of the metalworking fluid and adjust fluid parameters to those recommended by the supplier. If bacterial growth continues despite these adjustments, add biocide at the dose recommended by your supplier.
• ≥10×6 CFU/ml Poor control. Immediate action should be taken in line with the risk assessment. Normally draining and cleaning should take place

 In Summary

To ensure you are compliant with the guidance you need to implement the following actions: 

1. Carryout an initial assessment of potential exposure and review the current controls you have in place.
2. Implement any engineering and administrative controls.
3. Make an assessment of exposure levels as a baseline and for comparison against exposure limits where appropriate.
4. Implement a weekly monitoring regime to check the fluid quality (pH, concentration and temperature) is maintained in accordance with the manufacturer’s guidance.
5. Carryout weekly biological contamination checks using dip slides

All test monitoring records should be kept for a minimum of 5 years.

7th December 2021

A recent HSE prosecution has taken place after a food manufacturing company has been fined for safety breaches after a hygiene operative suffered a serious injury when his hand came into contact with a mixer whilst cleaning the door mechanism, resulting in his index finger being severed.

The findings of the HSE investigation were that; They failed to adequately maintain guarding arrangements on the paddle mixer whilst also having deficiencies with training and supervision. Breaching Section 11 (1) Provision and use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

The company was fined £93,000 and ordered to pay £769 in costs.

Comment made by HSE Inspector following were that “This incident could so easily have been avoided by simply implementing the correct control measures and safe working practices.”

Worker injured finger in machinery

9^th December 2021

The director of an air conditioning company has been sentenced after a worker sustained a broken back when he fell five metres to the ground.

breaching Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and received a six-month custodial sentence suspended for 12 months. Also required to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay costs of £4,886 and a victim surcharge.

HSE Inspector said “Roof work is a high-risk activity and duty holders must ensure they put measures in place to protect against this risk. “Falls from height often result in life-changing or fatal injuries.  In most cases, these incidents are needless and could be prevented by properly planning the work to ensure that effective preventative and protective measures are in place.”

Injury sustained from fall from height

13^th December 2021

A sawmill company has been fined for breaching Regulation 11 (1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) and Section 2 (1) of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, after a worker came into contact with the moving parts at the rear of a saw, sustaining injury to his finger.

The company was fined £40,000 and ordered to pay costs of £15,594.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector said: “This injury was easily preventable. Those in control have a responsibility to devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers.”

Worker finger severed in machinery

13^th December 2021

A company has been fined for safety breaches after a worker’s hand was entangled and wrapped around the rotating shaft on a lathe.

Breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety Act 1974 and have been fined £530,000 and ordered to pay costs of £4,548.20

The HSE inspector said: “Those in control of work have a responsibility to assess risk and devise safe methods of working in which their employees should then be instructed and trained. Had effective managerial arrangements been in place for the task ensuring employees follow a safe system of work, based upon risk assessment and supervision, information, instruction, and training is provided the life changing injuries sustained by this worker could have been prevented.

“Companies should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those that fall below the required standards”.

Worker loses hand in lathe

HSE also continues to review & update guidance on control measures for Covid-19 & variants of the virus.

The HSE are carrying out spot check programmes ensuring business are working safely and continuing to reduce the risk posed by COVID-19 transmission in the workplace. Spot-Checks &  Stress and Mental Health

Other guidance to support the management of Covid-19 controls on your sites.

Coronavirus working-safely  

Coronavirus ventilation

Face coverings

Homeworking guidance

Risk Assessment

You can continue to reduce the risk of transmission during the pandemic by taking measures to limit the number of people your workers are in contact with, so each person works with the same, consistent group.

UK government guidance on working safely provides further information and advice on these measures covering a range of different types of work.

You should make sure the measures identified by your risk assessment take account of the public health regulations and guidance for the nation you are working in. Please refer to your relevant guidance:

• England
• Wales

Inspectors are also carrying out checks as part of their normal role in visiting workplaces to check people are working safely. To ensure we reach as many workplaces as possible nationally and support the core work of our inspectors, we are working with trained and approved partners to deliver the spot check calls and visits.