Tag: Health and Safety

HSE releases 2018/19 health & safety figures: The key takeaways

Posted on by Melusi Chirikure
The 2018/19 Health and safety statistics summary can be found on: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/

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.

Bibliography

HSE (2019) ‘Health and safety statistics’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/ (accessed: 11/11/2019)

HSE (2019) ‘Workplace fatal injuries in Great Britain, 2019’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/pdf/fatalinjuries.pdf (accessed: 12/11/2019)

HSE (2019) ‘Kinds of accident statistics in Great Britain, 2019’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causinj/kinds-of-accident.pdf (accessed: 12/11/2019)

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)

HSE (-) ‘European comparisons’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/european/ (accessed: 12/11/2019)

HSE (2019) ‘Health and Safety statistics in the United Kingdom, 2019’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/european/european-comparisons.pdf (accessed: 12/11/2019)

HSE (2019) ‘Enforcement statistics in Great Britain, 2019’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/enforcement.pdf

HSE (2019) ‘LFS – Labour Force Survey – Self-reported work-related ill health and workplace injuries: Index of LFS tables’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/lfs/index.htm#illness (accessed: 13/11/2019)

Does my business need to be compliant?

Posted on by Melusi Chirikure

One of the first questions a business should ask in order to both a) abide with current law, as well as b) to keep employees aware of, and equipped against the variety of hazards that are often present in a work environment. Then after this it gets really complicated.

“What does the law say regarding _?”

“What mandatory information does my staff need to know regarding health and safety?”

“What is the best procedure in the event of an accident or incident at work?”

“How do we as a business best handle personal conflict between employees at work?”

Different workplaces present different challenges

Next, different parameters also have to be considered: which industry is your business in? And how many workers do you have? (The amount of employees affects what parts of the legislation begin to apply to your business).

Workforce Issues

And most, if not all of the time, compliance is simply a step towards safeguarding your employees and keeping a hazard-free work environment. For example RIDDOR reported 14 fatal work-related injuries in 2017/18 and according to the Labour Force Survey there were also over 600,000 non-fatal injuries to workers in the same period. Estimates also count around 13,000 deaths a year linked to past exposure of toxins at work – primarily chemicals or dust.

The general well-being of employees also affects productivity. For example HSE reports that in 2017/18 25.8 million working days were lost due to work-related ill health, as well as 15.4 million working days lost due to work-related mental health issues.

With your workforce’s physical and mental health to be considered in the day-to-day running of both small and large businesses alike, an in-depth understanding of your overall work environment in relation to the complex relationships individuals in an organisation might have to both each other and their physical environment is crucial to running a business successfully.

Therefore compliance becomes more than just abiding with the law, but using the knowledge and expertise of professionals in order to create a comfortable work environment for stakeholders in your business – unsurprisingly, positivity and professionalism can be sensed by your customers, especially if employees are confident in their own well-being and safety whilst at work.

Compliance training and relating procedures can be a timely process

Making the decision

Compliance of the law is therefore just another building block to a healthy work environment, but understanding one’s own specific needs is very time consuming. For example, between 2015/16 and 2017/2018 the education industry suffered the highest rates of stress, depression or anxiety at 2100 people per 100,000 (2.1%) when compared to average all industry rate of 1.3%; and additionally the causes of these issues range from the workload amount to workplace violence/threats or bullying.

Clearly nuance and care is needed in determining what best fits and works for your company, but thankfully there are specialist and knowledgeable advisors who can help you figure out your specific needs so you can take the next steps.

Who are we?

Safesmart is primarily a provider of an online management and compliance software called Smartlog, but we also offer consultancy on health and safety for small, medium and large businesses alike. Different industries have differing concerns and needs, ranging from an extensive risk assessment for a construction firm to booking a legionnaire awareness course for a small local pool for example; and budgets differ from company to company.

However Safesmart is tailored with this in mind; enabling a growing business to manage your premises, compliance, accident/incident reporting, and many more, on one portable and versatile platform – Smartlog. We are very affordable – competitively so, and ever-improving our customer’s capabilities within our software enabling them to have a dedicated health and safety compliance database and program, giving them less to worry about.

You can find out more here: https://safesmart.co.uk/

Sources:

HSE (2018) ‘Work related stress depression or anxiety statistics in Great Britain, 2018’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress.pdf (accessed 06/02/2019)

HSE (2018) ‘Work-related ill health and occupational disease in Great Britain’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/ (accessed 06/02/2019)

HSE (2018) ‘LFS – Labour Force Survey – Self-reported work-related ill health and workplace injuries: Index of LFS tables’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/lfs/index.htm#allillinj (accessed 06/02/2019)

School Health and Safety Training

Posted on by Tom Southern

School Health and Safety Training Cover

School Health and Safety Training

School Health and Safety Training p2

Original written for and published in: THE VOICE – Issue 14/ Spring 17  The National Association of School Business Management Magazine

Health and safety training is a legal requirement for all organisations. To ensure a safe working and learning environment in schools and comply with legal obligations, ongoing health and safety training is essential. There are many school health and safety training options available, including classroom, on-site, off-site and online. Paul J Williams and Tom Southern from Safesmart, a NASBM Approved Partner for health and safety software and services, consider why and how online school health and safety training systems can improve efficiency.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reminds us that legislation(1) requires employers to provide suitable information, instruction, training and supervision to ensure employees are equipped with sufficient skills, knowledge and experience to prevent them from coming to harm in the workplace. ‘The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 requires you to provide whatever information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of your employees.’(2)

This is extended by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which identify situations where health and safety (H&S) training is particularly important, for example when people start work, on exposure to new or increased risks and where existing skills may have become rusty or need updating.

In school, the following examples of H&S training are needed as a legal requirement: Fire Awareness, Display Screen Equipment, Manual Handling, First Aid, and Safeguarding Children. Others are required depending on staff roles. Effective training contributes to making staff competent in H&S and helps schools avoid the distress and sadness caused by accidents and ill health, as well as the financial implications.

To avoid non-compliance, a record of H&S training should be kept up to date, with details of who in your school has completed which training course, which staff are trained sufficiently and whether their certificates or licences are still current? Some schools have a number of paper files holding personnel details and copies of certificates, often only having adhoc monitoring of who needs a training refresher. This may be suitable for very small schools but when you expand and have more staff, paper-based systems become ineffective and inefficient. and tracking expiry and renewal requirements becomes more and more time consuming.

The most efficient way of logging who has undertaken the required school health and safety training, is with a software system that can record the progress of an individual’s staff training with reminder functionality for taking ‘other’ training courses, thus avoiding non-compliance. Online training software improves efficiency further. Delivery is quick and precise, training can be completed more efficiently at a convenient time and pace, without the need for scheduling dedicated training days, which can save time and money, and completion of online courses can be registered easily. Moreover, document management functionality can ensure your H&S policy is seen by all.

Online training can also be interactive and engaging, helping to improve knowledge retention. According to CommLab India’s website, a gamified approach to safety training caused a 45 per cent reduction in safety incidents and claim counts at Pep Boys, a car garage chain. The website also states that learners had an 11 per cent higher factual-knowledge level, a 14 per cent higher skill-based knowledge level, and a 9 per cent higher retention rate as per a meta-analysis of instructional effectiveness of computer-based simulation games.(3)

A key efficiency from online training is cost saving, with some onsite H&S training costing several hundred pounds per day. Having information stored online in the cloud offers information security and means that data is not lost if an incident such as a fire occurs. This ensures an audit trail is still visible and that compliance can be shown. People are used to online platforms and online learning ensures training consistency amongst all staff.

Ultimately, the efficiency and effectiveness of online training systems allow more time to be spent educating and inspiring pupils.

The following may help you to decide which H&S training software is right for you: www.safesmart.co.uk/choosing-health-safety-software

Safesmart is a NASBM Approved Partner for health and safety software and services (www.safesmart.co.uk/education).

References:

(1) and (2) HSE INDG345 (Health and Safety Executive), p1, www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg345.pdf

(3) www.commlabindia.com/resources/elearning-statistics

Effective training contributes to making school staff competent in H&S and helps schools avoid the distress and sadness caused by accidents and ill health, as well as the financial implications.

Online training can also be interactive and engaging, helping to improve knowledge retention.

Top tips:

A: Schools need to keep an up-to-date record of who has completed H&S training and when.

B: Using online training software saves your school time and money and can help knowledge retention.

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