As we all head towards the end of 2009 company directors should be giving their Health and Safety Managers a pat on the back for their continued good work. As reported in a previous post Britain is now one of the safest places to work in Europe.
Even though all this good work has been done there is still plenty to do, employees are still getting injured un-necessarily due to some bad practices and jobs being improperly planned. Some companies have to be prepared to change the way that their work is carried out; this may be simple actions from good housekeeping to a total rethink of a particular action. Here are some of the main actions that help health and safety.
Good housekeeping slips, trips and falls still remains the number one form of accident within the workplace and one way that your company can help cut the amount of accidents is to introduce a good housekeeping strategy; this will help control the amount of people that fall within your workplace. This is a strategy that should be followed by all in the workplace from the directors to the cleaners, any obstacles; pallet strapping or waste has to be placed in a bin, all spillages cleared up immediately and proper signage placed around affected areas. Good housekeeping should be observed every minute and not just left till a Friday afternoon.
Risk assessments have to be carried out for each machine or new work action, if there is any possibility that someone could be injured then a risk assessment has to be done. Risk assessments are required by law although the law does not expect you to eliminate all the risks, but you have to protect persons as far as reasonably practical. A risk assessment is an examination of what could harm a person while a specific action is being carried out. There are five steps that have to be carried out whilst doing a risk assessment.
• Look and identify all the hazards
• Who might be harmed whilst work is being carried out?
• Evaluate the risks and put in place any procedures that will help avoiding any accidents.
• Keep a record of any accidents.
• Look at your findings and see if they require an update.
Risk assessments should not be overcomplicated try and keep them simple.
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, under this act companies and organisations will be held accountable if found there was a serious failure in health and safety leading to the death of an employee.
One Response
I think no matter what you do you will always get injuries in the work place no matter what. Some people just don’t pay attention regardless.