Safety news

Please find below an update from HSE regarding their focus on dust exposure across all sectors of industry – if you need support or advice on dust exposures including air monitoring please contact us or request a call back from one of our safety consultants or an occupational hygienist.  We have many years of experience in monitoring for construction health including air sampling for wood and other process dust plus fume including respirable crystalline silica and also welding fume.

British businesses targeted in new dust inspections

Please find below an update from HSE regarding their focus on construction health – if you need support or advice on dust exposures including air monitoring please contact us or request a call back from one of our safety consultants or an occupational hygienist.  We have many years of experience in monitoring for construction health including air sampling for dust and fume including respirable crystalline silica and also welding fume (mild steel).

HSE to focus on the Construction Industry

During mid-June to mid-July, HSE’s campaign activity will once more include a focus on health in the construction industry, with an emphasis on lung disease – in particular where lung disease has been caused by exposure to asbestos and dust.

What Needs to be Done?

Naturally, health and safety, in general, should be a priority on all construction projects, and everyone has a duty to play a leading part in this and achieve the required standards – whether they be a manager, supervisor, employee, or contractor. The key messages for action are straightforward:

• Know the risks
• Plan your work
• Use the right controls

By understanding the main risks to health and the measures required to control these, workers can be better protected – and ultimately this will help achieve the aim to eradicate ill health and disease from the construction industry. Progress can also be made by sharing best practice examples – such as case studies: please visit HCLG’s website which features a number of construction industry case studies, as do some of the campaigns below.

Free Resources and Advice
Recent years have seen a number of campaigns launched, focusing on worker health and protecting workers from lung disease.  These have resulted in a vast range of valuable, free advice and resources being made widely available and easily accessible to everyone:

• HSE’s Go Home Healthy campaign: one of the main areas of focus for this initiative is lung disease, and in-depth information and a number of resources are available on HSE’s website
• IOSH’s No Time to Lose (NTTL) campaign: ‘A wake-up call to cancer caused by work’ highlights the need for a wider understanding of carcinogen exposure issues and how businesses can take action. Free resources include those related to asbestos, silica dust and diesel fumes i.e. known risks to lung health
• BOHS’s Breathe Freely campaign: ‘Controlling exposures to prevent occupational lung disease in construction’ is the primary aim of this campaign, and the Breathe Freely website contains a vast and wide range of resources – all specifically developed for the construction industry

What Next?

HSE’s initiative will continue to shine a spotlight on health, and demonstrate where progress is being made and where room for improvement remains. Supporting the above campaigns on social media will help achieve wider awareness of the issues; what action needs to happen; and the wide range of available resources.
By working together as leaders in the industry, and by sharing best practice, everyone can make a difference and play their part in raising standards to improve worker health protection in the construction industry.

Designing, implementing and maintaining management systems such as ISO45001 can seem daunting and time consuming.  Outsource Safety can help you and ensure that your systems are effective, efficient and focussed on your business risks and needs.

With an integrated management system, all the elements work together, with each function aligned behind a single goal; improving the performance of the entire organisation.  An IMS can benefit your organisation through increased efficiency and effectiveness and cost reductions, while minimising the disruption caused by numerous external audits.

We have proven expertise in:

• ISO9001
• ISO14001
• ISO45001
• ISO50001

Whether you are in construction/contracting; manufacturing/industrial; or administrative we can help with:

• Design and implementation of integrated management systems
• Internal audit
• Management Review
• Training and awareness
• Transition to new standards

Transition from OHSAS18001 to ISO45001 – when do I have to do it?

OHSAS18001 will cease to exist in March 2021….so you will have to go through the transition process well before then to ensure continuity of certification.  The date sounds a long way off, but don’t forget you will have to plan and implement the transition, ensure that you have sufficient documented evidence in place, then get your certification body in to audit the system.  It is wise to allow some contingency time too, in case there are any issues to be put right at the final audit.  Each certification body will have its own process for transition, so it’s worth talking to them to ensure the process runs smoothly.  Also, it is likely that the certification auditors will be very busy in the immediate run up to the deadline, so get the dates booked in as soon as you can.

So, even though you have nearly 2 years to complete the transition process, it will need to be carefully planned.

Transition from OHSAS18001 to ISO45001 – what are the differences?

The new ISO45001 standard is in the Annex-SL format – that is consistent with ISO9001, ISO14001, ISO50001 and many other international standards.  If you are familiar with the Annex -SL format through working with other Standards, you will already have a good idea about the structure and this will make the task easier.  However, it is often easier to concentrate on the differences, rather that recognise the similarities between the Standards, you can view more information on th standard here: https://www.iso.org/iso-45001-occupational-health-and-safety.htmlhttps://www.iso.org/iso-45001-occupational-health-and-safety.html

The key areas of difference are

• Leadership: It needs to be demonstrated that top management are fully committed to and understand the management system.  This goes well beyond attendance at an annual management review meeting!
• Context: It has to be established what the strategic risks and opportunities are for the organisation and understand the entire environment in which the organisation operates, including the needs and expectations of workers
• Worker participation and consultation
• Identification and resolution of root causes following failures (not just accidents)
• Integration of safety and health into business processes and systems.

Transition from OHSAS18001 to ISO45001 – how can I maximise the benefits (and minimise the work!)?

Consider the transition process as an opportunity to improve what you do and how you do it, rather than a problem to be solved.  Everything that you do should be based around the risks and needs of your business.  The new format of the Standards is less prescriptive with regards to documentation, so there should be no need to generate loads more paperwork.

But the biggest opportunity comes with the potential to integrate your management systems.  In fact this is a requirement of the Standard, but allows you to make it more effective and more efficient.  Do away with duplicated processes, systems and paperwork.  This will allow you to focus on what is really important for your business and drive improvement.  Do not look at health and safety management in isolation.

How Effective are your Ear Protectors?

A recent lawsuit against 3M and Aearo Technologies, who were found compliant in providing defective Combat Arms Earplugs (ear protectors), falsifying test results and misrepresenting the Earplugs performance to obtain a multi-million dollar contract with the US military, has resulted in 3M agreeing to pay out $9.1 million to resolve allegations that it knowingly sold the Dual-Ended Combat Arms Earplugs to the US Military without disclosing defects that hampered the effectiveness of the hearing protection device. The Earplugs were designed to block out and to reduce battlefield explosions and artillery fire, whilst still allowing the user to hear quieter noises such as communication by fellow soldiers or enemy combatants. The design, however, was not fit for purpose and failed to seal the ear canal correctly, when in a certain position, thereby opening up the user’s ears to potential hearing damage. US Army veteran, George Dooley filed the lawsuit, when diagnosed with hearing loss and tinnitus, having never before suffered from any hearing loss.

Mr Dooley was diagnosed with tinnitus and hearing loss when he retired from the military in 2008. He regularly used 3M’s defective Combat Arms earplugs at gun ranges and in military vehicles, including while deployed in Iraq. This has had a dramatic impact on his day to day life; the constant ringing in his ears interferes with everyday conversations and affects his sleep.

Whilst this is an American case, hearing loss through ineffective ear protection needs to be considered carefully. At Outsource-safety we are able to carry out noise exposure surveys, capture accurate exposure data and recommend appropriate noise management plans and possible ear protection. Please contact us for further discussions and to arrange a consultation.  If you have a requirement for noise monitoring you can speak directly to one of our experienced consultants on 01453 800100 or request a personal call back from one of them.

With the Summer holidays looming and many constructions sites situated near to where children play and have access to, extra care needs to be adhered to, to ensure all safety measures are in place. Children are often attracted to the noise, trucks and materials on a building site but are unaware of the dangers that await them. Correct signage and following the relevant health & safety procedures are prevalent and would prevent unfortunate incidents involving children occurring.

Our work supporting the Working Well Together Campaign is something we’re very committed to.  Our MD serves as Treasurer for the Southwest Region and attends meetings with HSE representatives and key members of the Health and Safety Executive and we help drive the safety message out to many small builders who would otherwise miss key safety messages like those around RCS and dust control.  Check out their new safety video aimed at primary aged school children here and feel free to distribute and use it as much as you can.

Take for example the case of Westdale Services Ltd; the failure to provide an adequate ladder guard, resulted in a young boy gaining access and climbing to the top platform of the scaffold, then climbing to the uppermost ladder to a height of approximately 10 metres. Regrettably, the boy fell causing life-changing injuries; he now has no bowel or bladder control and is unable to walk any distance.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the security arrangements for preventing access to the scaffolding, especially by children from a nearby school, were inadequate.

Westdale Services Limited of Doncaster Road, Askern, Doncaster pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and has been fined £160,000 and ordered to pay £22,310 in costs.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Michael Batt commented: “The death or injury of a child is particularly tragic and a lot of thought must go into securing construction sites. Children do not perceive danger as adults do. The potential for unauthorized access to construction sites must be carefully risk assessed and effective controls put in place.

“This incident could have been prevented by removal of the ladder completely or installing an appropriately sized ladder guard to cover the full width of the rungs.”

At Outsource Safety we work with construction and industry across the UK. We provide outsourced and interim support for every sector with our experienced professionals always on hand for expert advice.  If you’d like to support Working Well Together or would like to know about future events please contact us or email directly: wwtswg@gmail.com

It may be time to review your health & safety policies and set in place the correct measures following the announcement that the HSE are increasing their FFI hourly rate from £129 to £154 with effect from the 6^th April 2019. This has been the second increase since the scheme was introduced in 2012, starting off at an hourly rate of £124 and increasing in 2016 to £129 per hour. In a statement, the HSE stated that this can be attributed in part to the fact that the scheme has been operating at a loss.

A representative from the HSE commented:

“HSE’s cost recovery rate for FFI (Fee for Intervention) will increase to £154 per hour with effect from 6 April 2019. This means that businesses that are found to be in material breach of health and safety law will be charged at this new rate. As now, those businesses that meet their legal requirements will not pay anything for HSE’s regulatory activity. HSE must set the FFI rate with the aim of recovering its full cost and in recent years it has operated at a deficit (i.e. cost more than recovered in income). A combination of this and cumulative inflationary pressures support the increased hourly rate.”.

Charlotte O’Kane, associate at law firm Pinsent Mason, speaking to IOSH magazine advised…

“It serves to emphasize the fact that organisations should be ensuring that they are complying with the law and operating safely in order to avoid these FFI invoices being served in the first place. It’s getting more expensive to be investigated by the HSE and if they find a material breach, that is now going to be significantly more expensive.”

Under the scheme, the HSE only recovers costs of its regulatory work from non-compliant duty holders found to be in material breach of safety and health law, covering an inspectors time spent identifying and resolving the issue, as well as any investigation or enforcement action up to the point where HSE’s intervention has been concluded or a prosecution is started, or a report submitted to the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland. It is calculated by multiplying the time spent on FFI activity by the hourly rate.

Should you need assisting addressing any health & safety issues our friendly staff at Outsource safety are on hand to offer solutions to your problems. We have qualified experienced Safety Consultants with in excess of 20 years on hand knowledge and can walk you through your SSIP applications. In addition, we can offer Safety~net competent person support to assist with Risk and COSHH assessments.

From the provision of health and safety policies, risk assessments/method statements and toolbox talks to the delivery of Safety~net contracts, Outsource Safety can hold your hand through the mine field of health & safety requirements and procedures, ensuring you are covered for most eventualities.

Communication of risk to the workforce in the form of training is a key focus of the majority of our Safety~net contracts. We believe that paperwork exercises are a waste of time and money unless they are supported by implementation and communication.

The need to understand how to conduct a dynamic risk assessment when out on site is key. Failure to do so can result in a tragic outcome as occurred in the following case.

The failure to communicate safety precautions to the driver of a grab lorry resulted in the unfortunate death of an Options Energy Resource employee. The case held at Luton Crown Court heard how a driver of a grab lorry was unloading material at a farm location in Hertfordshire, when the grab arm came into contact with an 11kv overhead power line. It became apparent during the hearing that safety documentation had not been communicated and followed. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the defendant identified the risk but had failed to implement the precautions adequately, plan construction work and train the employees. The company in question pleaded guilty to breaching section 3 of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 and were fined £400,000.00 and ordered to pay costs of £17,242.33.

Following the hearing, HSE inspector Samantha Wells commented: “This was a tragic and wholly avoidable incident, caused by the failure of Options Energy Resource LLP to implement safe systems of work and to ensure that health and safety documentation was communicated and followed.

Every year in the UK, two people are killed and many more injured when machinery comes into contact with, or close proximity to, overhead power lines”.

Scarily many lives have been lost over the years by incorrect use of hot works application. The need to understand how to conduct a dynamic risk assessment when dealing with potentially flammable goods is crucial. Failure to do so can result in a tragic outcome, as occurred in the following case.

Recently a commercial vehicle dealer with 11 branches in the South West, Rygor Commercials, was fined after a workman lost his leg from the knee down following the cutting up of an oil drum which exploded. Magistrates were told how the employee was injured after he used oxy-acetylene gas cutting equipment to cut up empty oil drums. The flame from the equipment ignited following contact with the vapours from the oil drum causing an explosion, resulting in the drum lid hitting the employees lower right leg, causing him to ultimately lose the lower part of his right leg.

Following an HSE investigation it was found that the company failed to provide a safe system of work to dispose of the stockpile of empty oil drums. It was also found to be negligent in providing adequate training in the risks associated with the use of oxy-acetylene gas equipment. As a result, the company were ordered to pay £9671.55 costs and were fined £400,000 for breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Regulation 5 of the Dangerous Substances and Explosives Atmospheres Regulations 2002.

Speaking after the hearing HSE inspector Nancy Harman said:

“Those in control of work have a responsibility to devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers.

If a suitable safe system of work had been in place prior to the incident, the life changing injuries sustained by the employee could have been prevented.”

Here at Outsource Safety we are able to provide Toolbox talks to cover off appropriate methods of approach to issues such as safe disposal of oil drums and flammable materials in addition to the available support from the HSE guidance notes. We can tailor a policy to cover off your health & safety requirements in the form of a Safety~Net Contract. Communication of risk to the workforce in the form of training is a key focus of the work carried out at Outsource Safety and can avoid and prevent life changing injuries such as the case highlighted above.

At Outsource we specialise in making sense of safety, allowing our clients to receive sensible and proportional advice on how to make their business activity as safe as possible.

The critical process of implementing a risk assessment and safe system of work was clearly disregarded when two employees suffered serious injuries after an oxygen cylinder fired into a workshop.

Two employees of an engineering company were seriously injured during disposal of old gas cylinders at the company site in Hull in January 2017.

It was heard by Beverley Magistrates how the defendant company were enlisted to decommission approximately eight or nine gas cylinders, believed to contain oxygen. The cylinders had been laid outside in the company’s premises. All pressure release valves were open to empty any remaining gas in the cylinders.

Following this process an employee began to remove the pressure release valves from each of the cylinders. When he attempted to remove the valve on the last cylinder it became clear that it was stuck and could not be removed. An additional employee assisted the other worker in trying to dislodge the valve using a hammer. During this time the cylinder and valve separated violently as the gas which remained in the cylinder was abruptly released.

The cylinder proceeded to fire into the workshop, striking two employees stood inside. The employees suffered serious injuries to their lower limbs. Both employees needed multiple surgeries to reverse the damage and spent several weeks in hospital. One of the employees struck by the cylinder has been unable to return to work.

HSE investigators found that there was no safe system of work in place for the decommissioning and disposal of the old gas cylinders. Furthermore the company failed to carry out a suitable risk assessment to identify the associated risks.

Redhall Engineering Services Ltd of Winestead Lane, Hull, pleaded guilty to breaching section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and were find £14,000 and ordered to pay costs totalling £2,687.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector James Harvey said:

“This case highlights the serious risks posed by gas cylinders and how the correct disposal as well as cylinder handling and storage is fundamental to ensuring safety.”

There’s a huge amount being written about respirable crystalline silica of late.  We’ve been speaking about this for the past 22 years and have completed many monitoring and sampling programs for respirable crystalline silica (RCS) since our consultancy first started back in the early 90’s and we think you need to know more about what’s expected of your respirable crystalline silica health surveillance programme.

In the past 22 years we like to think we’ve played a part in raising awareness amongst a lot of different people through construction and related trades through free talks at Working Well Together events through to stopping people I’ve walked past or even had in as trades at home and speaking to them about the real risks and the misconceptions on the dangers of RCS exposure.

Respirable crystalline silica health surveillance

For most contractors, the message is getting to them and we now see more people wearing the right equipment more of the time.  Yes, we still have a long way to go but things are improving.  But what about those businesses that have raised awareness in their workforces and supply chains.  The slightly bigger companies which have really started to address risks from RCS, and also construction dust in general, at their sites – are they now compliant?  Are they managing risks to the correct standards?

We think that the answer to that question is No.

HSE document G404: COSHH Essentials. Health surveillance for those exposed to respirable crystalline silica gives good advice on what you are expected to do to monitor the health of your workforce and we’d suggest that you review it.  Particularly because Regulation 11 of COSHH (Health Surveillance) is a key area of fines under HSE’s Fee For Intervention scheme, as we stated in our White Paper on Fee For Intervention.

If you’d like to delve a little deeper and make sure your occupational health provider is as competent as your Occupational Hygienist (that’s us) then also review the supplementary document here which provide questionnaires and more specific advice on what to include in this health surveillance programme and who the competent person should be for carrying out each stage of the health surveillance programme.

Summary of health surveillance for RCS exposed employees

Check the below and see if your current arrangements are compliant (extracted form the HSE supplemetatry guidance document available here

• respiratory questionnaire (Example 1);
• lung function testing (spirometry) to measure forced expiratory volume (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC). FEV 1 is measured to within current American Thoracic Society (ATS)/European Respiratory Society (ERS) stipulated accuracy of 150 mls (or 100 mls if below 1 litre). The results should be recorded to monitor how values change with time (see Example 1B); and
• consideration of a baseline chest X-ray for comparison with future chest X-rays.

• respiratory questionnaire; and
• lung function testing.

• respiratory questionnaire;
• lung function testing; and
• PA (posterior to anterior) chest X-ray.