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.

Age Diversity: Protecting Older Workers’ Health and Safety

There are more older people in the workforce than ever before. People over 50 now make up 31% of the workforce, an increase from 21% in the early 1990s. On average, we’re living longer, healthier lives – with work as a key factor, either full-time or part-time.

This offers significant benefits to the older people who choose to work, securing enhanced pensions and better financial security. For many, later life work is a lifeline, guarding against isolation and offering a chance to actively use their skills daily. It’s more acceptable than ever to retrain for a second career, using the skills developed in the original job route, trying something entirely new or monetising a long-held passion.

With more experienced workers bringing a wealth of expertise and knowledge to British workplaces, employers need to consider how they make this group most welcome – and make sure their health and safety is taken into account. They are statistically more likely to be facing specific pressures outside of work; a quarter of older female workers, and one in eight older male workers, combine caring responsibilities with their jobs. People in their 50s and 60s are more likely than other age groups to be providing care to friends and family. Though all age groups have issues that affect them disproportionately and these statistics will of course not be relevant in all cases, it’s important to consider extending flexibility in the cases where they do apply. Indeed, offering flexible working can be beneficial for retaining employees of all ages.

Accident Rate

68-year-old Dennis Parker was killed at work in Nottingham after falling from height whilst working on a tree with a chainsaw. He was not wearing the correct protective clothing and there was a suggestion that he hadn’t received adequate training and preparation for the work he was doing.

Sadly, this tragic case is not a one-off. Older workers are more likely than their younger colleagues to be involved in a fatal accident. In 2018/19, 20% of fatal workplace accidents involved people aged 60 or over, even though the age group makes up just 10% of the workforce.

This doesn’t mean employers should shy away from choosing older workers for physically demanding work. It simply means they need to be mindful that people in this age bracket are more at risk of fatal accidents and to prepare accordingly, taking into account any health issues that are present.

Training should be good quality and refreshed regularly. People of all ages should be encouraged to speak up if they have a health and safety concern, or if they don’t feel they can complete a task in a safe manner.

Age Diversity

There has rightly been a lot of focus on increasing diversity in teams. Usually, these conversations centre around gender, race, sexual orientation or disability. Building age diverse teams has often been left out of consideration.

As with any other form of diversity, creating a mixture of ages strengthens a team and allows people to bring different perspectives to the table. Someone just starting out on a career path can learn a lot from somebody who has worked in that area for decades; likewise, younger people might bring a fresh approach and encourage the adoption of new concepts and technologies to improve processes.

As society ages and people live longer, more healthy lives, businesses that harness the benefits that employing older workers bring will be at a significant advantage.

Is Agriculture the Most Dangerous Industry?

In March 2019, 57-year-old farmer John Hamilton was killed in a machinery accident at his farm. Sadly, this wasn’t an isolated incident. With 7.73 deaths per 100,000 workers in agriculture (as compared to 1.94 per 100,000 for the construction industry), farming remains one of the most high-risk industries for deaths and injuries at work. It accounts for 15-20% of all worker fatalities, despite only employing 1.5% of the UK workforce.

Different Risk Factors

The number of potential hazards in a farming environment is huge – for people living on the farm (especially children) as well as agriculture workers themselves. According to the HSE, roughly one person a week has been killed as a result of agricultural work over the last decade.

The average year on a farm might involve working at height, working with livestock, operating dangerous machinery, long hours, extended periods of lone working, high stress levels, exposure to extreme weather and respiratory hazards (e.g. poultry dust). Working with the same machinery repeatedly – for example, using a tractor every day for months – can sometimes breed familiarity and therefore complacency, leaving people open to unexpected accidents. With such a mixture of hazards, it’s hardly surprising that farming has traditionally been an industry with high accident rates.

Growing Awareness

In response to the high death and accident rate in farming, there have been many initiatives aimed at improving safety in recent years.

The Tilly Pass was set up to provide a standard for farms maintaining their trailers safely. It was founded following the death of a 19-year-old agriculture worker. This is an example of a direct response to a tragedy, specifically targeted at equipment safety.

More broadly, in 2014 NFU Mutual established the Farm Safety Foundation. It aims to raise awareness of safety issues among farm workers and to reduce the accident and injury rates associated with the industry.

For farmers and all of those who live or work on farms, it’s important to keep health and safety at the forefront of their minds at all times. This is especially important when working at height, working with machinery, working with animals or working in challenging conditions, such as difficult weather or at night. Farms need to ensure they’re maintaining the highest standards of safety possible for all of their workers.

Health and Safety eLearning from DeltaNet International

We offer courses in Manual Handling, Working at Height and Hazardous Substances, all of which are highly relevant to agriculture.

Our full suites of Health and Safety courses can be found here.

Company Fined for Breaching Work at Height Regulations

Company Fined for Breaching Work at Height Regulations

A ground maintenance business based near Glasgow and a subcontractor have been fined £3,300 for conducting unsafe work at height, highlighting the importance of proper training and control measures.

Inex Works Civils Limited and subcontractor Colin Martin pleaded guilty to breaching work at height regulations during the incident in January 2017. Workers were observed carrying out roof repairs without the appropriate safety measures, throwing brushes and bags to each other between levels and failing to secure their safety harnesses to safe anchor points.

The ruling follows several similar incidents last year where fines ran into the tens of thousands of pounds on several occasions. Working at height is the biggest cause of fatal workplace accidents in the UK, so it makes sense that it’s treated so seriously.

Working at Height Safely

The primary legislation covering this area is the Work at Height Regulations 2005. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) summed up its main principles for employers: “you must do all that is reasonably practicable to prevent anyone falling”.

Employers are responsible for conducting risk assessments, providing the right equipment and making sure their workers are properly trained to carry out the job. As the Inex Works Civils Limited and Colin Martin incident shows, employers’ duties extend to the subcontractors they hire to complete the work.

Work at Height Training from VinciWorks

Our Working at Height eLearning courses make it easy to deliver engaging training to all employees who are working at height, ensuring everyone is aware of what their responsibilities are and helping employers to avoid the repercussions of unsafe work at height.

With over £0.5m in fines and costs for Working at Height breaches in July, are you meeting your responsibilities?

In July 2015, individuals and organisations found to have failed to meet Work at Height legislation requirements were fined and ordered to pay costs totalling over £0.5m.

Seven cases were reported by the HSE where proper Health and Safety was not in place, including four resulting in the deaths of workers, two cases of life changing injuries, and one case where lives were put at risk.

The total fines and costs related to the seven cases reported by the HSE in July were £576,376.90.

All businesses have a legal responsibility to ensure the correct training is undertaken before any Work at Height takes place, something VinciWorks can help with, with our responsive Working At Height Essentials course, designed to provide an overview for all employees likely to work at height – including on footstools – and our Working At Height Advanced eLearning course, which covers working at height at an industrial level including construction.

Risk comes before a fall when working at height

We hope it’s common knowledge that if an employee is injured due to a fall at work, employers can be prosecuted and fined.

But employers don’t only pay when there is a fall.

Even if no injury occurs, if work at height takes place without necessary safety measures in place, then you are risking more than their wellbeing.

You also put your business at risk of prosecution, significant fines, and a damaged reputation.

Health and Safety Executive inspectors proactively visit sites looking for evidence of safety measures including necessary equipment and risk assessments, as seen in recent cases.

As an employer or manager of staff who work at height, it’s your responsibility to provide that evidence.

Our Working at Height Essentials and Working at Height Advanced eLearning courses cover the essentials your employees need to know including legislation, risk assessment, equipment selection, maintenance and usage, and more.

Using eLearning to train your employees in Health and Safety allows you to be consistent to all employees and ensure their understanding of key subjects, with completion reports and assessment scores allowing you to pinpoint any areas of risk which need further attention.

Our Working at Heights Essentials and Working at Heights Advanced eLearning courses are also fully responsive – so workers can even learn on site using their mobile phone or tablet, with no need to train in a central office.