Health and safety in the workplace: Safer solutions

The role of a health and safety officer is as varied as the ways in which companies can employ one. It is a requirement for employers to minimise risks at the workplace, but the methods and motivations for doing so are plentiful.

For example, in a biscuit factory replacing a worker who manually transfers biscuits from production to a packaging line with an automated device would help eliminate potential back problems and also upper limb disorders, such as repetitive strain injury. It would also remove a thankless task and increase efficiency, says Phil Grace, liability risk manager at financial services company Aviva. Similarly, the use of mechanical devices to ensure pallets are always stacked at the same height can provide a simple solution to the problems above.

Given that the ergonomic design of many food factories is not optimal, a review of health and safety procedures can often lead to improved efficiency within the workplace as well as increased job satisfaction, says Grace.

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), manual handling is one of the main causes of personal injury in food manufacturing, thus the more companies do to minimise exposure of their workers to manual handling risks, the better.

Training is an essential part of the prevention of accidents, according to Susan Murray, the Unite union's head of health and safety. Grace agrees and says the best approach to preventing incidents such as slips, trips and falls; improper use of machinery; and collisions with in-factory transportation such as forklifts, is through training. However, Murray cautions that ensuring an environment exists in which staff are aware of the need to report concerns to their managers without fear of repercussions is also crucial (see panel story on facing page).

While larger companies often have a dedicated health and safety manager and can do most of their training in-house, for most small companies this is too costly. They often resort to hiring consultants.

This situation makes Lord Young's recent review of health and safety regulations, Common sense, common safety, particularly timely. Young's review examined the way health and safety regulations were being implemented by companies. Where they were not achieving the desired results, he has proposed solutions to ease the process of compliance. Among his proposals are: the creation of a registry of qualified health and safety consultants; simplification of risk assessments for low hazard locations such as offices; and a cap on the level of fees lawyers can claim for compensation cases involving relatively small sums of money.

Consultant registry​

The most significant proposal is the creation of an online registry for health and safety consultants, called the Occupational Safety Consultants Register. It was originally scheduled to be launched this month but has been delayed.

The registry will provide companies with more certainty in what is a largely unregulated area. Interested companies will be able to search for a consultant based on parameters such as field of expertise or geographic area. It should go a long way towards providing a better source of health and safety advice. Not only will it guarantee a minimum level of competency, it will also enable companies to search through the myriad consultancies that cover a wide spectrum of specific specialities.

The scheme will be managed by professional health and safety bodies through a not-for- profit company, with help and guidance from the HSE. Consultants that register would have to commit themselves to continuous professional development; have a degree equivalent qualification and two years' experience; professional indemnity insurance; and be bound by a code of conduct, which insists the advice they provide to companies is both sensible and proportionate.

While the registry will be voluntary, a requirement that those listed must have membership of a professional body such as the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland or the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management, should maintain levels of quality.

The notion of providing sensible and proportionate advice is key and is something that has often been missing in the past, says Rhys Griffiths, senior associate at law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse. It stems from the basic intention behind Young's review of creating a regulatory health and safety environment that is based on common sense and is easier for companies to implement.

Caps on lawyers fees​

Young's attempt to tackle the burgeoning 'no-win, no-fee' culture that is springing up around personal injury claims is a central plank in bringing some greater clarity to health and safety regulation.

By limiting fees that lawyers can claim from defendants in compensation claim cases where small sums are involved, the HSE hopes it will make it easier for personal injury claims to be properly processed. Griffiths says the limitation on fee liability for defendants, combined with a more professionally regulated list of consultants, should remove the overzealousness demonstrated by some consultants who try to remove risk altogether rather than trying to minimise it. "Companies will know if they go to this register they will get someone sensible," says Griffiths.

Although Young notes in his review that the UK's focus on health and safety has contributed to us having the lowest number of non-fatal accidents and the second lowest number of fatal accidents in Europe, there is a generally held view that the enforcement of health and safety here has gone too far, with reports of trivial complaints frequently making the news. According to a survey quoted in Young's review, small businesses felt that health and safety regulations were nearly twice as much an obstacle to business success as any other area of legislation.

Any attempt to introduce a framework that helps to reduce the incidence of people getting injured at work should be applauded. And the reduction of regulatory burden on hard-pressed, small manufacturers will also be particularly welcome. However, to be successful, health and safety has to be embraced by people.

Most companies that have demonstrated a good health and safety record will tell you that it is down to much more than merely appointing a company health and safety officer to look after things: it's all about changing cultures in the workplace from top to bottom. A good health and safety culture has to be driven from the top, which means getting buy-in at Board level. And that means not sacrificing safety at the altar of productivity. Safety must be king!

Online health and safety training targeted at company needs​

A new tailored web-based approach to training should help to reduce the costs and complexity of keeping up to date with health and safety in the workplace.

In an attempt to avoid the time and expense to smaller manufacturers of sending employees away to attend face-to-face courses, CPL Training has come up with a flexible online training service. This involves completing a 'training needs analysis' before the courses are started.

Paul Chase, head of UK compliance at CPL Training, says that rather than companies sending their staff on external courses or paying for trainers to visit their premises each time a new employee is hired, CPL's approach helps to determine the specific health and safety issues a company needs to address to comply with regulations.

The system can be integrated into a company's intranet, linking into payroll systems to log each member of staff. New employees can then be set training courses appropriate to their job functions, which they are required to complete within a set period of time. If employees have computer access outside work, they can also complete courses in their own time, says Chase.

For managers, the system provides the ability to track the progress of employees, monitoring how long it takes them to complete courses and the number of attempts made to pass. Automatic logging of all training data can be key to providing evidence of due diligence should a claim ever be brought against a company.

According to Aviva's liability risk manager, Phil Grace, it is not uncommon for workers making claims to argue that they were not properly trained for the jobs they were required to do. Good recordkeeping can provide defence against such claims.

While Chase says the system can spot cheaters, he also claims employees with learning difficulties find the courses easier because of their interactive, multimedia approach, which avoids the pitfalls of text- heavy content or 'death by powerpoint'.

"What we are most pleased about is that the courses take the pressure off health and safety coordinators to communicate all the legislation," says Chase. "The responsibility has become a team effort."