As this week marks a month of national lockdown – Britain’s third since 23 March last year, there remains uncertainty about a timeline for the lifting of restrictions.
The government has not yet made any clear indications for industries classed as ‘non-essential’ in the private sector about re-opening dates. However, schools have received more clarity, with the youngest pupils in Scotland set to return to classes full-time from 22 February and England hoping to bring back pupils from 8 March.
Whilst schools have not been completely shut to all pupils during the on-going pandemic; just like in September last year, re-opening will carry several health & safety challenges as temporarily abandoned facilities and buildings will need to be assessed for safety before being re-utilised to accommodate the increase of staff and pupil numbers.
Professional Services Availability: Site Visits
Per Government guidelines, our team continue to work remotely and remaining accessible by telephone, Zoom, MS Teams and email. However, our risk assessors are available for site visits nationwide to ensure that risk assessments remain up-to-date even while businesses and institutions remain temporarily closed.
We are still taking bookings for the following professional services:
Regarding a COVID-19 Risk Assessment, the HSE state that:
“As an employer, you must protect people from harm. This includes taking reasonable steps to protect your workers and others from coronavirus. This is called a COVID-19 risk assessment and it’ll help you manage risk and protect people.”
We released the following resources last summer, which can all be accessed through Smartlog:
If you wish to access any of these resources, or for more information, fill in our contact form, get in touch with our customer services team on 01908 320152 or send us an email to: customerservices@safesmart.co.uk with your request.
The Safesmart team would like to wish all our customers and their families a very Merry Christmas. After a difficult and challenging 2020, we hope that you all enjoy a happy new year.
For the Christmas holiday period, our office operating hours will be as following:
The HSE have released the annual health and safety figures for the year 2019/2020, and here are the 5 key takeaways.
Please note that this report falls largely outside the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public life (the first nationwide lockdown began 23rd March). Therefore findings should not be mainly attributed as to being the results of the pandemic.
1. Worker stress, depression or anxiety cases are up 37% from last year:
The cases for new and long-standing illnesses last year totalled 1.35 million, and this year’s figure is up a significant 21% to 1.63 million.
However, the most significant news: stress, depression or anxiety cases have gone up by a worrying 37% and are now the primary illness type (51%) of all new and long-standing illness cases (they made up 45% of cases last year). Stress, depression or anxiety are also responsible for an estimated 17.9 million working days lost this year – a massive increase of 40% from last year.
Overall, working days lost due to illness have gone up by 9 million (a 39% increase) from last year to 32.5 million – the highest number since 2001/02.
However, the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorder cases (480,000) fell by around 18,000 cases compared to 18/19, although new incidents were 14,000 more than last year.
2. Infectious disease cases had not increased by the end of March:
In the latest Labour Force Survey, work-related infectious disease (virus, bacteria) incidents remain unchanged from last year at around 24,000 cases, below the 2017 to 2019 3-year average of just over 30,000 cases. It must be noted again that the survey only relates to ill-health cases during the 12-month period before March this year.
However with the first COVID-19 case in the UK confirmed on 31 January, this is a notable finding.
3. Workplace fatalities reached a record low:
There were 111 worker (or employees/self-employed) fatalities in 19/20 – the lowest figure ever reported by RIDDOR since records began in 1974. The rate of fatal injuries also fell to a record low of 0.34 per 100,000 workers.
Whilst falls from height remain the biggest cause of death to workers (26%), the overall fall in fatalities continues an ongoing positive downward trend.
4. There are less serious injuries occurring at work, but more people are getting injured:
This year there were 4,937 less non-fatal injuries than last year for the lowest recorded figure from RIDDOR since 1985. Slips, trips or falls remain the biggest cause of RIDDOR reported injuries (29%).
However, this contrasts with Labour Force Survey statistics reporting 112,000 more non-fatal workplace injuries than last year, reaching the highest figure since 2010/11 with an estimated 693,000 cases this year.
Additionally, an estimated 6.3 million days were lost due to workplace injury – an increase of 1.6 million (34%) from last year.
This means that an estimated 38.8 million working days this year were lost due to work-related ill-health and non-fatal injuries; of which, at 10.6 million days more than 2018/19 is the largest single-year change on record.
5. HSE notices, prosecutions and fines fell significantly this year
2019/20 saw a 21% fall in notices issued by enforcing bodies, a 13% & 12% drop in prosecutions & convictions respectively by the HSE (and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland), and a 34% drop in fines.
The construction industry remained the sector with the most convictions (42% of all convictions), but manufacturing organisations were responsible for 45% of all fines received (£16 million) whilst only responsible for 27% of convictions.
The G-Cloud initiative, which began in 2012, was set up to ease the procurement process of cloud-affiliated technological services by public sector bodies — which includes central government, local government and emergency services departments.
The G-Cloud framework is operated by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), and Smartlog is now listed and supplied on the Digital Marketplace under the ‘Cloud software’ category: “Applications that are accessed over the internet and hosted in the cloud.“
The sponsorship grant will be open exclusively to all schools that are Safesmart customers using the health and safety compliance software Smartlog; with Milton Keynes local St Mary and St Giles Church of England School becoming the first official recipient of the award.
— St Mary and St Giles C of E School (@StMaryandStGil1) January 24, 2020
Headteacher Kate Holland said:
“We are delighted that a local business has so kindly chosen to sponsor our football team. We are extremely grateful for Safesmart’s support.”
Also adding:
“With school budgets becoming tighter, this sort of support goes a long way in encouraging all to succeed in sport.”
All schools which use Smartlog for their health and safety compliance will be eligible to apply directly for the grant a maximum of once each per year, with each successful individual award being worth up to £500.
The formal application process will open in April 2020, with successful recipients being announced before the school summer holidays.
A quick round-up of the biggest health and safety stories from the week commencing 18th November 2019:
A ‘No-light’ Christmas in Penbury
Last week Kent County Council refused to issue a Christmas lights permit for Penbury because the planned lights and decorations are twice as heavy as the lamp posts can safely hold. This last minute decision by the council has left no room for alternative arrangements. Full story here.
Egg production
company ordered to shell out over £60,000 in fines
A Lancashire egg production company was fined £60,000 by the HSE after a forklift overturned and seriously injured its driver.
“Companies should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those that fall below the required standards” said the HSE inspector, as Staveley’s Eggs Ltd were also ordered to pay costs of £4,259.42. Full story here.
Combustible cladding
concerns could involve ‘more than 100,000 buildings’
According to Inside Housing, minutes from a September meeting between representatives of London boroughs and government officials revealed that reducing the official high-rise building threshold from 18-metres to 11-metres would raise the amount of buildings under scrutiny from just 12,000 to over 100,000. Full story here.
The HSE have released the annual health and safety figures for the year 2018/2019, and here are the key takeaways:
1. Work related ill-health cases are a mixed bag:
The cases for new and long-standing illnesses last year totalled 1.36 million; and this year’s figure is down ever so slightly (1.35 million); however work-related musculoskeletal disorder cases (498,000) are up from last year (470,000) by a large 28,000 cases.
Stress, depression or anxiety cases (which made up 44% of all illness cases last year and an almost identical 45% this year) are up by around 6,000 and are responsible for 54% of all working days lost due to illness this year. However, working days missed due to stress, depression or anxiety are 2.7 million less than last year; a significant improvement.
Overall, working days lost due to all work-related ill health are down by almost 3.5 million; however the annual total costs of illness to businesses (around £15 billion) has remained unchanged from last year.
2. Fatal injuries to workers have gone up:
In 2017/18 there were 141 worker fatalities and in 2018/19 the figure is
up to 147, which is the joint highest figure for 6 years but slightly lower (149)
than the ten-year average since 2009/10. However a downward trend still remains
overall, with the latest ten-year average a full 56% lower than the previous decade’s
average of 233 fatalities a year.
3. Workplace fatal injuries to members of the public have gone down:
Fatal injuries to members of the public have declined from last year,
with the latest figure of 92 the lowest since 1996 and well below the 1999 to 2019
twenty-year average of 322* fatalities. In Europe as a whole, the UK still retains
a lower workplace fatality rate than Germany, Italy, France and Spain – in fact
the UK three-year average rate for 2013-2015 was the lowest of all EU member
states.
*Major changes in 2013/14 and 2015/16 to what is included in public
fatalities figures should be taken into account when interpreting these
statistics.
4. Less people are getting injured at work:
This year there were 2,323 less non-fatal injuries than last year (69,208 injuries compared to last year’s figures of 71,531). This latest figure is the lowest recorded since 1985, and the rate of non-fatal injuries to workers has shown a long-term downward trend overall. As a result, 28.2 million working days this year were lost due to work-related ill-health and non-fatal injuries compared to 30.7 million days last year; a significant improvement.
5. The HSE prosecuted less cases this year
2017/18 saw 11,522 notices issued by enforcing bodies, 493 cases prosecuted (or referred to COPFS in Scotland) by the HSE, and £72.6 million in fines from such convictions; and 2018/19 saw slightly less issued notices (11,040), more than 120 less prosecutions (364) and £54.5 million in fines — £18.1 million less than last year. However, the average fine per case this year is similar to last year (£150,000 and £148,000 respectively), which indicates that the significant drop in fines is most likely a result of the fall in HSE prosecutions.
HSE (2019) ‘Historical picture statistics in Great Britain, 2019 – trends in work-related ill health and workplace injury’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/history/index.htm (accessed: 12/11/2019)
We are pleased to announce that our online training courses are now CPD certified on their 1st submission. All our online training courses have been created by our health & safety, fire safety and compliance experts and on Tuesday the CPD Certification Service informed us that our 20 online training courses on Smartlog 5 meet their standards. This is testament to their detail & quality.
The CPD certification service have independently checked that the material in our training courses meets their standards.
Safesmart now provide ‘CPD Certified’ online training to unlimited users at an affordable price per site location.
‘The CPD Service’s recognised and authoritative CPD Member and CPD Certified symbols offer institutional associations, educational providers and consumers alike reassurance that the material concerned achieves the qualitative standards required by all parties.’ www.cpduk.co.uk/about
We raised £1,122 pounds for Children in Need on Friday the 16th of November.
On the day staff also made donations and took part in donation entry spot themed games such as a Connect 4 championship and a charity raffle for a Christmas hamper. This was amongst our work and our fire safety engineers on the road even sent in pictures of their decorations for the day. The prize for the Connect 4 champion was an extra day of holiday and so things got tense and competitive too. There was also a prize for the best dressed which went to Ramos for his awesome unicorn style outfit with his colorful waistcoat and hat. He is very happy to feature in the MK Citizen as a unicorn ☺
It was a fun day had by all raising money for an excellent cause. It’s great that MK Citizen featured us and we hope our activity may inspire more SMEs in Milton Keynes and around the UK to take part and be creative with fundraising ideas.
We hope to go bigger next year and support more charities that keep people safe in line with our mission to improve safety, efficiency and affordability.
This Friday the 16th of November we are holding a Children in Need event at our office in Milton Keynes whereby we will give 1p for every spot that is used as decoration or worn and brought to work up to our target of 100,000 spots. We are an SME and so 100,000 spots is the maximum on this occasion but as we grow we continue to engage with more charities to not only help keep people safe with our health & safety software and services but with charitable giving where possible.
We thought of the idea from Pudsey’s spots on his bandage. Hopefully by mentioning what we’re doing, our idea of 1p per spot could resonate with you and others to help with fundraising ideas and the promotion of Children in Need.
Children in need is an excellent charity that helps hundreds of thousands of children across the UK every year. Their website mentions on 13/11/18 that they are currently supporting 2,400 projects all across the UK.
BBC Children in Need announced that its fundraising total for the 2017 Appeal was £60,750,000. The 2017 total was the collective efforts of every single person across the UK who did something to raise money, from sponsored runs to sponsored silences and bake sales.
BBC Children in Need’s vision is that every child in the UK has a childhood which is:
– Safe
– Happy and Secure
– Allows them the chance to reach their potential
Safesmart’s brand purpose and vision is to improve safety, efficiency and affordability. We also help to keep children safe in thousands of schools across the country as the Preferred Supplier for the Association of School and College Leaders. We help to keep children and adults safe in all industry sectors we supply whilst also supporting charities by providing our Smartlog software to them. Large well-known UK Charities use Smartlog to ensure safety and compliance across their operations.
Did you know? Pudsey Bear made his television debut in 1985 when Terry Wogan introduced the new, brown cuddly mascot to the audience. He was designed by Joanna Ball, a BBC graphics designer, who named him after the West Yorkshire town where she was born.
This year’s live BBC Children in Need appeal show will take place on Friday evening and promises to be an exciting spectacle of music, dance and entertainment. Hosted by Graham Norton, Tess Daly, Ade Adepitan, Mel Giedroyc, Rob Beckett, Marvin and Rochelle Humes, it will be a fantastic night, raising money for disadvantaged children and young adults here in the UK who need our support, and also celebrating and thanking the fundraisers who do so much.
We hope you will also take part in fundraising and donate to this great cause.
This site uses cookies. By continuing to use our website you show that you consent to our website’s use of cookies. Click here to view our Privacy Notice.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
