What has Health and Safety Done for Us?

It’s safe to say “health and safety” doesn’t always get a good press.

Blamed for everything from stopping fun events to banning conkers, health and safety legislation is more often portrayed as a grumpy killjoy than the reason the United Kingdom has one of the lowest workplace mortality rates in Europe.

To even the score, we’ve gathered some of the reasons we should all be on Team Health and Safety:

Work is an Adult-Only Environment

Some people had a good time in school; some people didn’t. But we can all agree our time there was infinitely preferable to being forced to go up a chimney or down a mine to feed our families – something that was a reality a few generations ago.

Health and safety reform has marched hand in hand with other kinds of workers’ rights, and with good reason.

Children were often exploited in early industrial workplaces. In factories, their smaller stature meant they were used to climb into hard-to-reach parts of the machinery to repair it – meaning they bore the brunt of the injuries. Likewise, their size made them suited for chimney sweep work, exposing them to dangerous fumes and causing disastrous health problems.

If this nightmarish scenario sounds alien to the life we live today, it’s advances in health and safety policy we have to thank.

Our Streets Don’t Stink (Usually)

Work-related health and safety isn’t just for the good of employees. Every year, even now, thousands of members of the public are injured due to work-related activities. The toll that pollution is having on our health and environment is well-publicised.

Regulations controlling hygiene, waste disposal and air pollution have a long history in the UK. Many 19th century Public Health Acts displayed a growing recognition of the idea of sanitation. The links between filthy living conditions and the health of the populace were clearer than they had been. These reforms paved the way for things like modern plumbing and waste practices – something we’re all thankful for every time we walk down a city street!

We’re Less Likely to Die of Infection

Florence Nightingale was an instrumental figure in improving hospital hygiene. During her work as a nurse, she noticed most deaths weren’t down to the illnesses or wounds patients arrived with, but due to the infections they later developed. She pushed for reform of hygiene standards and saw related deaths lower significantly.

Nowadays, anything related to healthcare, food preparation or waste disposal is governed by strong health and safety legislation. Some might call this red tape, but if it stops us getting ill from preventable diseases, we’re all for it.

Canaries Will Thank Us

It’s not just humans who have benefited from health and safety policy! Canaries were famously taken down mines to warn of carbon monoxide or other poisonous gases. As a sentinel species, canaries are particularly sensitive to such atmospheric problems. Their reactions – or sometimes deaths – would allow the miners to evacuate before feeling the effects themselves. Surprisingly, this practice didn’t die out in the UK until 1986, when the introduction of higher tech, automatic devices for detecting carbon monoxide replaced the canaries. Presumably, the canaries were chirping with glee about not being used in this way anymore.

So next time you hear the phrase “health and safety gone mad”, remember all the great things this legislation has brought us – humans and canaries alike.

NEW RELEASE: Electrical Safety eLearning Course

Most workplaces are heavily reliant on all kinds of electrical appliances. Electrical faults and wiring are the most common cause of workplace fires and even at 50 volts, electric shocks can cause serious injuries.

Our new Electrical Safety online course is an engaging way to explore this potential health and safety hazard. It is particularly beneficial for people working in traditional workplaces such as offices, who understand the importance of electrical safety and want to learn more.

In the course, you take on the role of an office worker accompanying an electrical consultant around the workplace. You focus on how to recognise electrical hazards and what you can do to minimise the risks.

See our new Electrical Safety course HERE.

NEW RELEASE: Noise Exposure eLearning Course

Did you know that exposure to prolonged or loud noise at work can permanently damage your hearing? Around 21,000 UK workers suffer from work-related hearing problems, ranging from deafness to tinnitus. Nearly all of these cases were entirely avoidable.

Our new Noise Exposure online course is an engaging way to explore this potential health and safety hazard. Most workplaces can benefit from considering the impact of the noise they produce on their staff and people in the surrounding areas, and noise doesn’t have to be constant to be a potential issue.

In the course, you take on the role of a Health and Safety Consultant specialising in noise. While visiting Shady Oaks Industrial Park, you meet companies and employees with possible noise exposure problems. Answer the questions to help them assess and manage the risks of noise exposure and pass the course! Topics range from the correct way to use ear protection to how to modify premises to reduce the risks. Employee and employer responsibilities are both covered.

See our new New Exposure course HERE.

Six Tips For Keeping Your Business Safe Online

Technology has transformed the modern workplace. From remote working to cloud-based apps and systems, more businesses than ever, including small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), are harnessing the power of the Internet and digital technologies to improve productivity, boost efficiency and maintain business continuity.

While innovation has made universal access to the workplace possible from anywhere in the world, it comes with its share of threats. Cybercriminals are waiting and ready to attack vulnerable systems and users online. According to the 2019 Global State of Cybersecurity in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses report, about 66% of SMBs globally have reported a cyberattack in the past 12 months.

With new risks coming to light each year, it is vital to step up the efforts to protect your business and employees from the threat of cyberattacks. Here are some useful tips for keeping your business and employees safe online and securing your systems.

Prevent Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware attacks more than doubled last year with over £3.7bn paid out in ransom. Ransomware attacks are designed to disable or illegally take over business systems in exchange for financial payments, disrupting businesses and causing heaving financial losses. Cybercriminals are known to use a range of tactics, including phishing, to gain access to systems. Once in, it’s only a matter of time before data and systems are compromised and users find themselves locked out.

Ransomware attacks typically involve getting users to click on malicious links or attachments which could be PDF, ZIP, Word document, Excel spreadsheet, etc.

TIP: Beware of suspicious emails or SMS. If you are not expecting it, don’t know the sender or doubt the source, resist the temptation to click on potentially unsafe links or attachments which could open up access to cybercriminals.

Secure Systems Against Malware

Malicious software, or malware, enables cybercriminals to attack systems and networks by installing on to a user’s device without their knowledge. Malware can often be hard to detect and opens up access to personal and business information. The most common types of malware include viruses, spyware and Trojan horses. The best defence against malware is installing anti-virus software and ensuring systems are updated regularly.

TIP: Set up your devices, operating systems and apps to automatically install updates to make sure you get the latest security features that repair known security holes and help protect your systems against viruses and malware.

Beware of Social Engineering

Have you ever experienced an email asking for personal information or telling you that your account is at risk unless you provide login details? This is social engineering and involves cybercriminals psychologically manipulating unsuspecting users into divulging confidential information online. The best way to pre-empt a social engineering attack is through awareness, looking out for suspicious activity and about knowing who to trust with personal or business information.

TIP: Check before sharing any sensitive information online. Ask yourself these three questions: Does this look/seem/appear legitimate? Do you really need to provide this information online? What are you risking by providing information?

Use Unique Passwords

The number of accounts and devices which most people use daily usually means that a majority of people end up reusing their passwords rather than trying to remember several different ones. This could mean that employees often use the same or similar passwords for personal and business accounts. This could be dangerous because if one of the accounts is compromised by cybercriminals, it could mean all your accounts and all the information they hold become very easily accessible.

TIP: Use unique passwords each time and make sure they are a combination of letters, numbers and characters. Strong passwords avoid using obvious personal information which can be easy to ascertain or guess, such as date of birth, the first line of home/office address or pet names.

Adopt a Comprehensive Company Policy

A company cybersecurity policy outlines the guidelines and best practice for your employees to follow to ensure they are protecting their systems and keeping your business secure against the threat of cyberattacks. Company policies are vital for driving the message from the top and raising awareness amongst your employees.

TIP: A comprehensive company cybersecurity policy should include the following:

  • Importance of cybersecurity
  • Detecting key cyber threats such as phishing and ransomware
  • Applying security updates and patches
  • Locking computers and devices when not in use
  • Reporting lost and stolen devices
  • Protecting data and Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
  • Applying privacy settings for social media
  • Effective password management

Train your Staff

One of the key messages of the Safer Internet Day focuses on empowering employees to confidently respond to cyber threats through clear advice and quick access to support if things do go wrong. This includes training your workforce and developing their knowledge on the cyber threats facing them.

TIP: Invest in training and development programs which offer a comprehensive curriculum of training courses on cybersecurity and keeping information secure so that your employees are aware of the threats facing them and equip them with the knowledge for acting against threats.

How Can We Help?

As global specialists in compliance-focused training and development, we understand the importance of creating a compliant workforce and equipping your employees with the skills and knowledge to make the right decisions.

Find out how we can help you keep your business and employees safe online through our online Cyber Security Training courses. From comprehensive courses on Data Protection and Information Security to multiple bitesize micro-learning modules covering cybersecurity issues including phishing, password setting and social engineering.

Data Privacy Day 2020 – Tips on Keeping Your Data Safe and Secure

Happy Data Privacy Day! Created by the Council of Europe in 2006, Data Protection Day is celebrated every year to promote data protection best practices and raise awareness on the importance of data privacy. Globally, it is recognized as Data Privacy Day.

For businesses, data is a valuable entity and it is therefore vital to protect it for ensuring business continuity and compliance with the regulation. In the spirit of data privacy and all things data protection, we share with you some useful tips for keeping your business data safe and secure this year.

Ensuring Compliance in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Nearly all AI-based products and services rely on the collection of large amounts of data, including personal data, to understand user behaviour and make intelligent decisions. Data is therefore vital in powering AI, but it also poses new challenges for data privacy. In December 2018, an Amazon customer in Germany was mistakenly sent about 1,700 audio files from someone else’s Amazon Echo device – a mistake attributed to human error. In July last year, it was reported that Amazon responded to a letter sent by a US Senator confirming that it maintained Alexa recordings indefinitely (unless a user manually comes in and deletes them).

Incidents such as this highlight the importance of data protection and ensuring compliance in AI.

Legislation in Europe and the US is picking up momentum with the European Commission looking to implement an “appropriate” ethical and legal framework for the development of AI aimed at boosting innovation while making individuals’ rights a priority.

A piloting phase which ran until December 2019 was based on draft Ethics guidelines describing trustworthy AI as:

  • lawful – respecting all applicable laws and regulations
  • ethical – respecting ethical principles and values
  • robust – both from a technical perspective while taking into account its social environment

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) includes ‘privacy by design’, encouraging businesses to develop products with built-in privacy standards from the start. This will certainly hold for AI-driven technology and products which will need to factor in privacy and consent.

Recognizing GDPR as an Opportunity

Speaking of the GDPR, it has been over a year and a half since the regulation came into force and it continues to drive the way businesses collect and use customer data. More customers are also becoming wary about how their personal data is collected and used for business purposes.

For businesses, GDPR is no longer just about compliance, there is also a tremendous business opportunity in a data-driven economy. In a world brimming with data, businesses can stand out by leveraging GDPR best practice to maintain up-to-date data lists and boost their reputation as a responsible, reliable partner and committed to deepening digital trust with its customer base.

Remember to:

  • Audit your data periodically – Ensure that your customer data is up-to-date and your customers are engaged with your business.
  • Implement a strict retention policy – If you are holding data on customers who haven’t engaged with you in a while, maybe it’s time to review if you need that data. You can erase or anonymize the data you no longer need.
  • Aim for ‘privacy by design’ – Make sure you have performed a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) to identify and reduce the data protection risks your business could face and allow members of staff to fix any problems before a breach occurs.
  • Review your privacy policy – Ensure that your privacy policy clearly states your business identity, how long you intend to use your customer data, your legal basis for processing data, any data retention periods and the customers the right to complain to the ICO.

Evaluating Your Password Policy

A 2019 survey by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) found that “12345” and “password” remain amongst the top five common passwords accessed in global breaches. Liverpool was the most common Premier League football team used in passwords, with Superman the most popular fictional character.

Making good password choices is vital for protecting individual and professional business data. For businesses, this means continually reviewing and enforcing robust password policy.

Key ingredients of a comprehensive password policy:

  • Reset Password – Passwords must be reset every set number of days to ensure users are changing passwords periodically.
  • Password history – Discourage users from recycling the same password again with a minimum of 10 previous passwords remembered.
  • Maximum password age – Determine how long users can keep their password before they have to change it, forcing users to change their passwords regularly.
  • Password complexity – Rules to ensure users aren’t using their first or last name as password, as well as using a mix of character types such as lower case, upper case, numbers, and symbols.

Staying Safe Online

Social engineering continues to pose one of the biggest security risks to businesses. Cybercriminals often target employees using deception with the intent of gaining confidential information for fraudulent purposes. These techniques include phishing and baiting and could also include links to fake website pages, emails from doctored addresses, or communications that appear to come from government or official sources.

Social engineering also works on manipulation in the digital world, profiling, and misuse of personal information.

Steps to take to protect your business from social engineering:

  • Regularly update your company antivirus software.
  • Secure your business network with a robust firewall.
  • Make sure employees are aware of responding to an email from unknown persons especially those containing links or attachments.
  • Train employees to recognize doctored email addresses from fraudulent sources.
  • Make sure employees never give out financial or sensitive information over the phone or electronically without encryption.

Mitigating the Risks of Human Error

A report by Kaspersky Lab revealed that about 90% of data breaches are caused by human error.

Many businesses suffer data breaches because their employees inadvertently created an entry-point to the systems, whether it is from opening unsafe email attachments or clicking on suspicious website links to downloading unsafe files.

Cybercriminals count on human flaws to circumvent the most robust security software. It all comes down to a lack of awareness which can put your employees at risk of making errors in judgment, resulting in data and security breaches, company downtime, or financial loss.

Invest in Awareness Training

Investing in a thorough employee training program is a vital ingredient in any organization’s data protection policy. Raising awareness ensures that employees understand the regulatory obligations for businesses and understand the implications of non-compliance. Realizing the value of sensitive information if breached can also help employees to act with caution and make the right decisions to keep business data safe and protected.

Make sure your employee training program includes a comprehensive overview of key topics such as data protection, GDPR, and information security. We also recommend keeping employees up to date with microlearning courses for refreshing and reinforcing key learning messages over time.

How Can We Help?

At DeltaNet International, we are firm believers in leveraging the power of awareness training to reduce the impact of human error. Without raising awareness, you may be putting your business at risk of non-compliance with data protection and privacy laws. Don’t get caught out by the regulators, invest in awareness training for your staff. Find out how we can help with our range of Data Protection Online Training.

Rethinking Blue Monday

Did you hear it was Blue Monday this time last week? The concept seemed to be everywhere. #BlueMonday was trending on Twitter all day; media outlets competed to publish the most sensationalist articles on “surviving” the most depressing day of the year. But do you actually feel any different today than you did on the day itself – or the Monday before?

The idea goes that Blue Monday represents a “perfect storm” of misery. With the fun of Christmas disappearing into our collective rear-view mirrors and our New Year’s Resolutions already failed and forgotten, we look ahead and only see weeks of bad weather until the reprieve of springtime. Even the most committed traveller would admit it’s too early to get excited about this year’s summer holiday. So what is there to be happy about?

Part of Blue Monday’s appeal is that it feels so intuitively true. The idea of the January blues has been around for a long time. Like the Boomtown Rats, most of us “don’t like Mondays”. The phrase has certainly resonated with people: Google shows a steady increase in the numbers searching for it each January, with the last three years especially standing out. The Netherlands – which was named the 5th happiest country in the world in a UN study last year – came out on top for interest in Blue Monday, with the United Kingdom, Poland, Greece and Belgium close behind.

So why is Blue Monday increasingly controversial?

Blue Monday: Does it Make Sense?

One thing’s for certain: the calculations that led to Blue Monday are nonsensical (sorry, Blue Monday supporters).

The most commonly used formula looks scientific at first glance. It uses letters to represent concepts: for instance, W = weather, T = time since Christmas and d = debt. But there’s nothing mathematical about this. There are no definitions or units specified and “low motivational levels” is a subjective concept that would be difficult to accurately measure. Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that Blue Monday originally came from a 2005 marketing campaign for a travel company encouraging people to escape the winter blues by booking a holiday. It was only afterwards that it took on a life of its own.

Dodgy origins aside, defenders of the Blue Monday bandwagon claim it can play an important role. Despite all the recent progress, mental health remains a taboo subject in many workplaces. Anything that opens up the conversation about mental health support should be applauded, surely?

Obscuring the Real Issues

Unfortunately, not all “mental health conversations” are created equal.

While it is of course important that everyone feels empowered to discuss their mental health, at work and at home, they also need to feel that their concerns are taken seriously rather than being dismissed as “just because of that time of year”.

For people suffering from mental health issues such as anxiety and depression – approximately 1 in 4 of us every year – Blue Monday could be minimising their experiences. Depression isn’t just one day of feeling low. It’s a serious health condition that spans months or years for most sufferers. Though it is treatable, it can have severe effects on a person’s life. Depressive episodes need to last at least two weeks to be formally diagnosed and, in many cases, can go on for years. People who experience the related Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) sometimes have symptoms spanning around 40% of the year.

One danger is that Blue Monday can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people are told that one day is inherently “depressing”, they might feel that way even if everything is going fine. Even worse, people whose mental health is fragile might expect a worsening of their symptoms for the day – a suggestion that might be enough in itself to trigger an episode or make it worse.

Dr. Antonis Kousoulis, director of the Mental Health Foundation, agrees: “this [Blue Monday] is not the right way to raise awareness. By saying this single day is the most depressing day of the year, without any evidence, we are trivialising how serious depression can be.”

24/7/365

With mental health issues so serious and so widespread, employers need to provide substantial support year-round. The Labour Force Survey revealed that 12.8 million working days were lost to work-related stress, depression and anxiety from 2018-19. Over 600,000 workers experienced these conditions, with workload cited as the main aggravating factor. Far from being confined to one day in January, time off sick for stress usually spikes in November or December but remains relatively steady throughout the year. As a country, we still have a long way to go to tackle this crisis.

World Mental Health Day (10th October) and National Stress Awareness Day (the first Wednesday in November) play an important role in bringing these issues to the front of people’s minds. If we are to give Blue Monday a useful function, it needs to follow a similar path: to begin larger conversations around mental health. The Samaritans achieved this brilliantly with their campaign “Brew Monday”, encouraging friends, family members and colleagues to share a cup of tea and a conversation while raising money for a great cause. This can take place on any Monday in January or February.

We need to bin Blue Monday in its current form and focus on real, lasting action on mental health. This includes high-quality training, greater mental health awareness and empowering people to discuss their mental health, whatever the time of year.

Improving your Workplace Risk Assessment

When it comes to improving your workplace’s health and safety, there are few things more important than getting your risk assessments right. After all, if you don’t know where your potential safety issues are, how can you tackle them with the appropriate control measures?

Every risk assessment will be different because every workplace’s needs are different. There are a core group of health and safety topics that need to be covered by almost any organisation (e.g. fire risk assessment) and some specialist topics that vary depending on the company and its context (e.g. hazardous substances or legionella risk assessment). When it comes to the office risk assessment, one size certainly doesn’t fit all.

What is a Risk Assessment?

On the surface, “what is a risk assessment” seems like an easy question to answer: it’s a record of the possible risks and hazards in a working environment and the control measures in place to tackle them.

A quick internet search can reveal the technical basics of how to write a risk assessment. But all too often, they are seen as a box-ticking exercise, performed in isolation by one member of the management team purely to comply with legal requirements. The resulting document is sometimes then left to gather dust, with little relevance to the day-to-day work it refers to. This is a shame: effective risk assessments are a powerful tool to keep your staff safe and your accident rate down.

People responsible for writing them should begin by asking themselves: what is the purpose of a risk assessment? First and foremost, it exists to have real-world consequences – namely, the prevention of injury and accidents. If your risk assessment isn’t a living document that is regularly updated and has a clear relationship to how work is being performed on the ground, it isn’t doing its job.

Communication

The key to a good workplace or office risk assessment is the same as achieving good health and safety in general: communication with staff at all levels.

It’s fine to use a risk assessment template as a guide. There are many good quality versions available online. However, it’s vital to make sure yours is tailored to your specific circumstances.

The importance of communication flows both ways. Just as the suggested control measures are much more likely to be effective if they are the result of collaboration rather than dreamt up in isolation, workers are more likely to abide by health and safety rules if they know why they are in place. Like so much of successful health and safety culture, it must be an ongoing conversation. It must be a joint effort from everyone rather than something passed down from above with no explanation.

Risk Assessment Training

Writing a good risk assessment is a skill like any other. It can be improved with quality training and practice.

Any employee can learn how to write a risk assessment, though it is essentially a collaborative effort between everyone in the workplace. Employees should be empowered to speak up about the health and safety challenges they face in their workplace, from fire safety to stress levels, and the writing and updating of risk assessments are the perfect times for these discussions to be encouraged.

NEW RELEASE: Product Liability eLearning Course

NEW RELEASE: Product Liability eLearning Course

Product liability claims occur when product users are injured while using a product the way it was intended. When a product fails to work as intended, it could cause injury or loss of life and raise serious concerns for product manufacturers.

When a defect or potential defect is identified in a product, it raises concerns on product safety and integrity, posing a danger to end-users of the faulty products. Product liability laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and ensure that product designers, manufacturers and promoters are aware of their responsibilities when developing products.

Some of the most infamous product recalls include over 41.6 million vehicles equipped with 56 million defective Takata airbags which could explode when deployed, causing serious injury or even death, and faulty ignition switches in General Motors (GM) vehicles which cost GM over $4.1 billion on repairing vehicles and settling compensation claims.

Businesses can mitigate the risks of product liability by developing products using reasonable care, helping avoid injuries that may arise from product use and save costs on the ensuing product recalls.

At DeltaNet International, we are firm believers in leveraging the power of awareness training to ensure compliance with product safety. Our upcoming eLearning course aims to raise awareness on product liability within businesses, focusing on the responsibilities of product designers, manufacturers, and promoters. Learners will go behind the scenes at a fictional firm Auto A-Z who are dealing with the consequences of a product recall of one of their products. Find out more about our new course HERE.

The Product Liability eLearning course joins our suite of Protecting Assets courses.

DeltaNet International Christmas Opening Hours

Happy Holidays from everyone at DeltaNet International!

Thank you for a fantastic 2019. It’s been jam-packed, with many new and updated courses and a major upgrade to our Astute platform.

Christmas Opening Hours

We’re closing for the Christmas break at 5pm on 24th December 2019. We’ll return at 9am on 2nd January 2020.

Any enquiries sent during the festive period will be responded to once we return after New Year.

Best wishes for 2020!

The DeltaNet International team

Sick in the Workplace: 1.4 Million Suffering from Work-Related Ill Health

The latest statistics on workplace ill health from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) make for interesting reading. 1.4 million of us suffered from work-related ill health in 2018/19, with nearly half a million new cases appearing. Collectively, 23.5 million working days were lost to work-related ill health over this period.

The figures hint at the scale of the human cost of poor health and safety in the workplace. For each of these cases there’s someone who has suffered hardship because of work, often long-term, and in some cases fatal.

What are the Causes?

A staggering 44% of work-related ill health is caused by stress, depression and anxiety. The majority of days off sick have this cause. In many cases, due to the weakening but sadly still present stigma around mental health, workers may attribute their absence to a physical illness to avoid telling their managers. Taking mental health seriously is a huge priority for all organisations.

Musculoskeletal disorders were another prominent issue. Unsurprisingly, industries such as agriculture and construction have a higher than average rate, but all companies need to make sure they’re offering proper trained in manual handling. In offices, spending too long at the keyboard in the wrong position can lead to musculoskeletal problems later on. These can often be long-term and cause severe pain; in some cases, people will be unable to work due to their symptoms.

It’s important not to dismiss the early signs of these conditions as “just a sign of ageing”. Most people have room for improvement in their posture or working conditions and should see a doctor if they feel they might be developing a disorder.

The causes of workplace injuries are relatively familiar. Slips, trips and falls were the most common cause once again, with manual handling close behind. Shockingly, 8% of workplace injuries were caused by acts of violence. It’s unacceptable that anyone should face violence or aggression at their workplace. Some jobs, such as healthcare, security and retail, have a higher than average risk of encountering this poor conduct and employers should take every step necessary to make sure their workers are protected. Anyone can be a victim of workplace violence or aggression, so even in industries that don’t suffer from a higher risk, managers need to take this very seriously.

Occupational lung disease affects thousands of people. In fact, an estimated 12,000 people die each year from past exposures at work. Asbestos damage is sadly common. This highlights how inadequate health and safety can have an impact on employees years after the problem occurred.

Will Things Improve?

Work-related ill health declined for a number of years but has been broadly flat in recent times. With the right training, legislation and commitment from people in all industries, there’s no reason why we won’t see further improvements.

For employers, the most important thing to do immediately is to listen to their staff. The people doing the work on a daily basis are the ones with the most valuable insights into potential hazards and what they need to mitigate them. This is especially valuable during the risk assessment process.

Overall, the UK’s health and safety culture compares favourably with many others around the world. It is one of the safest places to work in Europe. There’s no reason why the trend towards improvement in recent decades shouldn’t continue, as long as the right conditions are maintained and it remains a top priority for businesses and employees alike.