Tag: Checks

How to Spot Safety Risks

Posted on by Charlie Patrick

Every year, over half a million accidents occur in the UK workplace, which leads to around 60 million lost workdays through injury. From freak occurrences to oversights in safety, these injuries often occur for a range of reasons.

As the responsible person you have a legal requirement to identify and minimise the risks, and a common way to do this is through a Risk Assessment.

The law states that employers must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the safety risks to their employees that they may encounter whilst at work. If you are an organisation with 5 or more employees, this is then required to be recorded – both detailing the findings and any employees that may be at an increased risk.

A risk assessment covers this legislation, as carrying one out involves finding the potential hazards and introducing control measures to minimise the risks, which in turn will ensure a safe workplace.

So, who can complete risk assessments?

Anyone who is deemed ‘competent’ can complete a risk assessment. According to the HSE, this is deemed as having the “relevant skills, experience, and knowledge to manage health and safety”.

Inspection

The first step towards increasing safety is to identify any potential risks: Take a walk around your workplace whilst being mindful of any potential hazards, regardless of the severity.

Make sure to take into account any changes that may happen, as workplaces are often busy and changing, so make sure to try this at different times of the day and week, to see if any other issues present themselves.

These changes could affect the overall safety of your business, so it is important to check often to keep everyone safe.

After all, a business environment can be completely different from one day to the next and this should be factored into your overall assessment. To avoid missing common risks that are often forgotten, we would suggest that you use a risk assessment template.

Communication

As well as conducting inspections, it is imperative that you communicate with all employees.

Your employees are working within your business every day and likely encounter a range of risks daily, therefore developing an in-depth understanding of the risks involved, so make sure to ask them!

They will be able to offer a different perspective on the issues faced, as well as being able to point out anything you may have missed.

This can be valuable feedback to help you keep them safe and feel heard.

It can also be useful to reach out to external organisations for advice. If you have any machinery or equipment within your workplace, it may be a useful idea to contact the manufacturers or check the manuals for guidance.

You can also get in touch with occupational safety organisations for more generalised guidance.

Expectation

When identifying the risks in your organisation, you need to be thorough and not just look for expected hazards. You need to be considerate of unexpected events which could occur, and these can include anything from faulty equipment to something coming loose and falling, for example.

By looking beyond the expected hazards, it allows you to plan for the unexpected – just in case. This will, therefore safeguard everyone that might enter the working environment – both employees and the general public.

Although commonplace, you might forget to think about employees who work outside of regular hours, such as cleaners or maintenance staff. This highlights the importance of considering all aspects of the working day, so make sure to take everyone into account.

Long Term

Long-term risks can often be overlooked during inspections, but it is important to take them into consideration. This is particularly important for environments with unique conditions such as a high level of noise or the use of chemicals.

Although most long-term risks may not appear dangerous at first, they have the potential to cause lasting damage to employees who deal with them regularly.

Due to them being less prominent, long-term risks can often require more research. For example, if you are unsure about a specific hazard (such as sound levels for example), it might be useful to read up on it or contact an organisation who are more knowledgeable in that area.

Analysis

Analysis of the illness and accident records can be a great tool to help you to identify safety risks. They can highlight patterns in ill health, which in turn will aid you in finding the root causes.

Patterns may include anything from location, use of machinery, time of day or even training level.

These real-world examples can often be very informative of the working environment, therefore are key for helping you to prevent future ill health due to a recurring risk.

Personalisation

Risk assessments are ultimately about protecting people, and this should be kept in mind when looking for hazards.

Extra consideration should be given to vulnerable people, including older, younger, people with disabilities, pregnant women and new mothers.

Consideration should also be given to employees with little or no training who may not be fully acclimatised to your business yet.

Conclusion

To recap: risk assessments are a legal requirement for employers to ensure the safety of everyone in their workplace. It is important they are completed by a competent person to a high standard, taking into account all potential risks both long and short-term.

This should be done whilst also considering the changes in the workplace during the day and any vulnerable people who may require extra attention to ensure their safety.

Analysing past incidents and speaking to employees will help improve the quality of the risk assessments you complete, as this will assist you in finding any overlooked hazards and also provide a different perspective on issues.

Bibliography

HSE (2022) ‘Health and safety statistics’. Available at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/ (Accessed: 08/06/2023)

Gov (1999) ‘The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999’. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/3/made (Accessed: 08/06/2023)

HSE (2022) ‘Managing risks and risk assessment at work’. Available at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/index.htm (Accessed: 08/06/2023)

Gov (1974) ‘Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974’. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/contents (Accessed: 08/06/2023)

7 Fire Safety checks to do regularly

Posted on by Charlie Patrick

England’s Fire and Rescue Services attend around 65,000 fires every year, with 14,000 of them taking place in business premises. Evidently, fire safety is crucial to any organisation, and we can never be too safe when dealing with something so devastatingly dangerous.

Who is responsible for your fire safety?

By law, you need to reach a minimum standard for preventative fire safety measures in all buildings except single-owned dwellings, as per the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. This order holds a legal obligation for the ‘responsible person’ to manage the fire safety of the premises.

The ‘responsible person’ is most likely the employer, but can also be the building owner or the person that has control over the premises. Their responsibilities include but are not limited to:

  • ensuring that a fire risk assessment has been completed by a competent person,
  • ensuring the safety of their employees from harm,
  • providing employees with relevant information on the risks identified and measures to prevent it,
  • providing employees with adequate fire safety training.

The responsible person is held accountable for an organisation’s fire safety standards, and can face unlimited fines or a prison sentence for up to 2 years if they do not withhold these standards.

In this blog, we have compiled a short list of important checks you should carry out alongside your other preventative safety measures.

1. Check your fire alarms

Fire alarms play a vital role in saving lives, so it is key that they are checked regularly.

Article 17(1) of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRO) requires the responsible person to ensure that any fire alarm system are “subject to a suitable system of maintenance and are maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.”

To comply with this legislation, you should check your fire alarms weekly.

All manual call points should also be checked at the same time for damage, and you must make sure they are easily accessible with nothing obstructing them.

2. Check your bins

Bins are a common target for arson, which according to The National Fire Chief’s Council (NFCC), are the leading cause of fires that require a response from the Fire & Rescue services. Therefore, maintaining and checking them regularly is key to minimising risk.

You need to check that external bins are not located close to buildings and are emptied regularly. You also need to check that fuels or anything that has been previously alight is correctly disposed of (e.g. cigarettes and matches).

Some other preventative measures you can take include:

  • Keeping large bins and waste locked away, so they are not accessible to anyone unauthorised
  • Ensure bins are not wall-mounted beneath a window, by a door, or an overhanging roof
  • Ensure they are kept away from the perimeters of the property

3. Check your fire doors and fire exits

Fire doors are key to preventing the spread of fire, as they can hold back smoke and flames between 30-60 minutes, depending on their quality. The first thing you should check:

Is the door structurally intact?

This means that there is no damage to the door and it is still fitted correctly, with the closing mechanism still automatically closing the door shut.

It is also important to check that your fire doors are not being propped open by an object.

Next, the condition of cold smoke seals and intumescent strips needs to be checked for damage.

Without these, the door loses functionality and will no longer meet the required standards. It is also important to check that the door’s opening mechanism works well every time.

And finally, for fire exits you should check that the path is clear and there is nothing obstructing them.

4. Check your signage

The law requires the responsible person to ensure that all emergency routes and exits are indicated by signage.

You need to check that signs are clean and visible, so that in case of an emergency the way out is clear and well-lit.

Also check that signs are not damaged or have a loose fixing, as this may become problematic if not fixed.

5. Check your electrical equipment

Faulty and misused electrical equipment is a common cause of fires, so it is important that they are checked regularly as part of your fire safety checks.

They often have many hazards to check for, from where they are placed to the sockets they are plugged into. You need to check that:

  • Plug sockets are not overloaded or hot
  • Wires and cables are not damaged

It is also important to make sure that anything that may get hot or has moving parts (like fans) are kept clear of any obstructions and are at no risk of falling over.

It is also good to make sure all electrics are PAT tested, as that is one of the ways you can fill the legal duty to maintain your electrical equipment to a safe standard, as per the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.

6. Check your fire extinguishers

BS 5306-3:2017 is the British standard for fire extinguishing installations and equipment on premises, and Paragraph 11.2 recommends that all fire extinguishers are subject to a visual inspection by a competent person on a monthly basis. The result of the test should be recorded, and any deficiencies acted upon.

To meet this standard, the check must ensure:

  • Each extinguisher is correctly located in the designated space, is unobstructed, and accessible
  • The operating instructions are clean, legible, and face forwards
  • The reading of the pressure gauge is within the ‘green’ zone and any indicator is within safety limits
  • Each extinguisher has not been used, damaged, or tampered with

Fire extinguishers must be readily available for use throughout the building but especially on an emergency exit route. They need to be checked regularly for obstructions that may block access to them and for damage.

Also, are there enough of the right extinguisher type for the risks present?

For example, you should have enough CO2 extinguishers for use on any electrical fires that are accessible throughout the whole building – minimum requirements should be detailed within your fire risk assessment. For advice on this you, you can also try our free fire extinguisher calculator.

7. Check your emergency plan

It is also key to make sure that there is a suitable emergency plan for when a fire is detected. The law places a duty on the responsible person to manage arrangements for actions to be taken in the event of a fire on the premises.

The emergency plan should include:

  • A detailed description of everybody’s roles
  • The alarm systems in place to alert everybody
  • All assembly points
  • Arrangements for the evacuation of the vulnerable (young children, disabled, elderly etc.)
  • Contingency plans

Overall, these checks will help give you that little bit more confidence and peace of mind. If completed regularly, they will also boost the fire safety standards in your premises and make sure that any simple-to-fix flaws are checked for regularly.

These checks will also aid in helping you comply with your responsibilities as a ‘responsible person’, but they should ideally be used to complement established professional fire safety measures you follow, not replace them.  

Bibliography

The National Archives (2005) ‘The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005’. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/1541/contents/made (Accessed: 28/04/2023)

Gov.uk (2023) ‘Fire safety in the workplace’. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/workplace-fire-safety-your-responsibilities (Accessed: 28/04/2023)

BSI (2017) ‘Fire extinguishing installations and equipment on premises – Commissioning and maintenance of portable fire extinguishers. Code of practice’. Available at: https://knowledge.bsigroup.com/products/fire-extinguishing-installations-and-equipment-on-premises-commissioning-and-maintenance-of-portable-fire-extinguishers-code-of-practice-1/tracked-changes (Accessed: 28/04/2023)

NFCC (2019) ‘Arson’. Available at: https://www.nationalfirechiefs.org.uk/Arson (Accessed: 28/04/2023)

Gov.uk (2023) ‘Fire statistics data tables’. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fire-statistics-data-tables (Accessed: 02/04/2023)

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