News

Adverse Weather is now a frequent occurrence in the UK which calls for employers and employees to adopt common sense safe working practices. For many employees, driving to and from their workplace and for business purposes constitutes the most risky activity they carry out.

DRIVING

Guidance is readily available to assist managers and employees in dynamic practical risk assessment on safe driving. Scottish and Southern Energy put in place policies which resulted in a 30% reduction in accident/road safety costs.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/roadsafety/experience/scotsoutelec.pdf

SLIPS AND TRIPS

Free guidance is available on how to adopt a practical approach to ensuring the safety of the public and employees on your premises by using grid and signage appropriate to weather conditions in response to snow and ice.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/slips/faq.htm

Companies have a duty of care to employees and the public to ensure that reasonably foreseeable accidents, such as falls of snow from roofs, slips and trips, and road traffic accidents in dangerous road conditions are prevented. This underlines the importance of competent health and safety advice and appropriate training for managers and employees affected.

 

As Risk Assessment is a legal requirement in the UK for Britain's 2.7 million businesses, owners and Managers who carry out basic or complex risk assessment need guidance and training to carry out this vital business role. Both the NEBOSH General Certificate and IOSH Managing Safely courses explain in detail how to carry out this out, and include practical workplace risk assessment projects to do this in a structured and compliant way.
Every month over 300,000 searches are made in the UK on search engines for information on risk assessment. Free advice is available via the HSE website, http://www.hse.gov.uk/business/risk.htm

however for an accredited training course in Risk Assessment - the 4 day IOSH Managing Safely course or 11 Day NEBOSH General Certificate provide a foundation for knowledgeable risk assessment.  

To illustrate how improvements in Health and Safety can reduce costs – a Case Study from the HSE illustrates how an IOSH Managing Safely training programme by a major UK Food Company saved £380,000 as part of a Safety Management System. This included a 36% saving in staff days lost to injury saving £100,000, a 45% reduction in civil claims by employees, and a 8.5% reduction in liability insurance premium which saved £80,000.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/business/casestudy/uniq.htm

Following recent regional successful inspection campaign in the North East of England during 2010, some 450 businesses in the Halifax Calderdale area have been inspected by the Health and Safety Executive.  Despite advanced warning – there were 4 prohibition notices at companies halting work until dangerous hazards were remedied.  A further 13 improvement notices were issued requiring immediate remedy.  Companies have a legal duty to appoint a trained competent person or advisor, have a written policy and have suitable and sufficient risk assessments. A failure to have the above would qualify for an improvement notice which if not auctioned could lead to proceedings leading to a fine at county court of up to £20,000

Safety Excellence is proud to be associated with Emagister

As part of our continuing commitment to alliances with successful organisations in the learning industry, UTN Safety Excellence has signed a 13 month agreement to list all NEBOSH and IOSH courses with dynamic and growing International Learning portal company emagister.com.
 
"We are proud to work with emagister as they share our view on the international importance of safety learning and our belief in learning must be professional open and fun"

The UK has one of the best Health and Safety records in the world, recent released statistics from the Health and Safety Executive show. However rates of injury and illness vary considerably across the UK. Best Practice can help to continue to drive down injury rates across sectors and companies.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/regions/index.htm

HSE Data shows that regional variation indicates that the North East of England has the lowest rate of Major Injury (RIDDOR 3 Day) of 1219 per 100,000 workers whilst the South East of England has the highest at 3433 per 100,000 workers which is almost 3 times the NE rate.

This success is mirrored in the number of HSE prosecutions which in 2009/10 was only 35 for the North East compared to 116 for the South East.

Considering the costs of compensation claims, lost employee time and damage to reputation and company assets that a major safety event causes this underlines the importance of companies taking effective measures to evaluate and control risks as required by UK legislation.