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Health and Safety for Apprentices – HSE & Apprentices

In November last year we organised the first-ever Health and Safety for Apprenticeships Conference.

Safesmart decided to run this free conference to help UK employers understand their obligations and improve the safety of apprentices in the workplace.

We named it the ‘Health & Safety for Apprenticeships Conference’ with free registration through Eventbrite.

As far we’re aware it was first conference of its kind to focus on the specific topic of Health & Safety for Apprenticeships.

With lots of information in the news about the apprenticeship levy and the increasing number of young people choosing apprenticeships to start their career we feel it is vital to inform employers of the required Health & Safety legislation, their obligations and also ways to reduce risks in the work place for young people as well as older staff carrying out further training in new environments.

The purpose of the conference was to inform and makes things clear for employers as well as suggest tips to reduce risk for both young and older apprentices.

The free conference presentation can be downloaded: here

Some useful stats and links about health and safety & apprentices:

• ‘Almost 900,000 funded apprentices participated on an apprenticeship in the 2015 to 2016 academic year, and the Government has set a target of 3 million new apprenticeships by 2020’. http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN03052

• HSE young people at work: http://www.hse.gov.uk/youngpeople/law/index.htm

• HSE indg364- Young people and work Experience  http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg364.pdf

• Protection of young persons – The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 – http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/19/made

• Health and safety for apprentices https://www.unionlearn.org.uk/health-and-safety-apprentices

• Safeguarding – https://www.gov.uk/topic/schools-colleges-childrens-services/safeguarding-children/latest 

• Health and safety requirements to be relaxed to boost apprenticeships – IOSH said it welcomed efforts to encourage more high-quality apprenticeships, but regretted that health and safety was again being portrayed as a hindrance. https://www.shponline.co.uk/health-and-safety-requirements-to-be-relaxed-to-boost-apprenticeships/

• ‘Young people, aged 18 to 24 years, are particularly vulnerable to hazards in the workplace with a 40% higher rate of non-fatal injuries than older workers in all sectors.’ https://osha.europa.eu/en/highlights/international-youth-day-eu-osha-promotes-healthy-workplaces-young-workers

• RoSPA inquiry into apprentices May 2016 – ‘HSE’s statistics are in age groupings and do not distinguish between young workers who are apprentices, on work experience or are just workers who are young. Nor do they give a true indication of the relative risk faced by young workers because they do not compare like for like, for example, the rate of injuries for persons under 25 and over 25 doing the same job.’ https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/occupational-safety/noshc/rospa-inquiry-into-apprentices-report.pdf

• 21st World Congress on Safety and Health at Work (3 to 6 September 2017 in Singapore)

Second Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo –‘Data from the International Labour Organisation shows that workers aged 15 to 24 are 40 per cent more likely to get injured at work compared with their older counterparts, said Mrs Teo.’ http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/manpower/young-people-urged-to-be-aware-of-workplace-safety

• Protecting apprentices in the workplace – ‘In January 2013, a 16 year old engineering apprentice, Cameron Minshull, tragically lost his life after becoming entangled in a lathe.  Prosecutors in Cameron’s case alleged that his employer used apprentices as “cheap labour”, had a history of failing to train them properly and had a “grossly unsafe” system of work.’ http://strongerunions.org/2015/07/16/protecting-apprentices-in-the-workplace/

• Wouldn’t say that ‘Young workers are ignoring health & safety’ but perhaps this survey shows more needs to be done – ‘The survey of 2,000 employees, working for businesses that have over five employees, found that 27 percent of workers aged between 18 and 34 have put themselves at risk by not following their companies’ safety procedures.’ https://www.thehrdirector.com/business-news/gen-y/young-workers-ignoring-health-safety/