Health & Safety
HOW COMPETENT ARE YOUR STAFF?
In this month’s article I am afraid that I am going to return to a familiar theme, with yet another tragic accident occurring in the industry.
Many of you will probably have already seen the news reports which give some details of the accident which occurred 2 years ago in Coventry when an 11 year old school girl was killed after being struck by a refuse lorry on her way to school.
As is so often the case, there was previous form leading up to the incident, which with the correct level of control should have prevented the death from occurring. These circumstances once again shine a very bright spot light on the working practices of the sector and although it was a refuse vehicle, the lessons should resonate loudly with all of us involved in waste transport.
In addition to the trauma and sorrow surrounding the loss of life, the council was also fined a hefty £125,000 and a further £40,000 in costs when it admitted breaches under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act in a prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
You may be surprised to learn that the police had actually been secretly watching and filming bin crews over several months following a number of complaints about the way that the lorries were being driven.
These were presented as evidence in court and showed lorries reversing at considerable speed over long distances around blind bends and being driven erratically, to include mounting the pavement.
What makes the circumstances even worse is that the council had already had one “wake-up call” only three months earlier when a 15-year-old girl was also run over by a reversing bin lorry. Fortunately she escaped with only minor injuries but the court was told that the council failed to take any significant action after the incident.
The council admitted failing to operate a safe system of work including inadequate supervision, information and instruction for the refuse collection service. It also admitted failing to ensure suitable risk assessments for refuse employees.
Paul Smith, the investigating inspector for the Health and Safety Executive said: “There is a tragic history of pedestrians, particularly children and old people, being run over by refuse collection vehicles.
These incidents must act as a stimulus for the industry to review it’s procedures, making sure that vehicle risks are properly controlled.”
Lessons?
I think we all have a duty to learn from these incidents… I am sure that the council concerned have made several major changes to their processes and procedures, but I would urge you all to do the same before you become involved in such a tragic situation… “barn door, horse, late” springs to mind.
I would suggest that you could look to the failings mentioned above and make sure that you are not also in danger of making the same mistakes.
It mentions a safe system of work, to include adequate supervision, information and instruction and suitable risk assessments. I have mentioned all of these in previous articles, but have you done anything about it… I am wagging my finger school teacher like at the computer screen as I type this!!
Ask yourself a question…
When was the last time you actually considered providing any training or instruction to your drivers/crews?
If the answer is never, or not very often, then I am afraid that you could be moving in the direction of the council mentioned in this article. I think we are all aware of the risks of operating vehicles, so you are not really going to have any defence should something go wrong, unless you can demonstrate that you have that elusive “safe system of work” in place.
It doesn’t have to cost the earth
The cost of doing nothing is certainly not “nothing” as the council found out with a hefty fine and costs. Also, just think about the damage to your business from being involved in such an emotive incident. This of course certainly doesn’t reflect the loss suffered by family and friends of the individuals involved in any accident, but it probably brings it home to you and your company.
Nevertheless, I think that we have to live in the real world and recognise that monetary costs are going to be a factor in how far you are prepared to go with changes. But, with a bit of planning and a few phone calls you might even find that all this doesn’t have to cost you very much. For example, are you aware that there is funding available to help with training and the delivery of NVQs to staff? This would go some way towards helping you to introduce and, perhaps more importantly, be able to demonstrate that you have introduced, a safe system of work.
If any of this strikes a chord with you and you want to discuss the options available to you in more detail, then please contact me as we need to try and stop these tragic incidents from occurring again and again.
Nigel Mair is a WAMITAB assessor and verifier and runs the North West Regional Assessment Centre, delivering WAMITAB qualifications and other H&S, waste and environmental training.
If you have any questions for Nigel, please email them through to nigel@theskip.net
March 22, 2008 at 2:25 pm | Health & Safety | No comment
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Health & Safety: TOP TIPS
By Nigel Mair
This month I wanted to follow on from the New Year Resolutions I suggested last month and give you some health and safety tips that you might want to follow… if you are anything like me, then you will already have dispensed with your resolutions!
Tip 1
Don’t be an ostrich and bury your head in the sand. If you do, something will definitely come along and bite you in the testimonials. It might not happen this week, month, or year, but sooner or later something will happen. If (when) it does, it will cost you money, or even worse!
Tip 2
Speak to your staff! This isn’t very groundbreaking and is something that Roger, The Garbage Guru, also keeps mentioning in his articles. Nevertheless, it is probably one area that most managers are pretty bad at… particularly if it is their own business.
Although I have said “speak”, perhaps a better description would be “to listen to your staff”! I appreciate that they will come up with a lot of whinges and also probably an unobtainable wish list, but there may well be some nuggets of useful stuff. It will also ensure that you stay close to the business… and did you realise that you are actually required by legislation to consult with your staff?
I get involved in talking to a lot of staff when carrying out NVQ work on sites and it is amazing what they will tell me about problems they have and also suggested improvements. You might also find out some unexpected work practices!!
Tip 3
Make sure that your staff are doing the basics. This again sounds obvious, but you might be surprised how many times we go to sites and find the most basic rules being broken. For example, at a simple level do they wear the PPE they should… always?
It can be difficult to check, but you need to put in place some sort of monitoring system and also pull them up when you spot something wrong.
Tip 4
Following on from Tip 3, you should also ensure that you follow the basics… do you always practice what you preach, following all the site rules as well? This is essential as any shortfalls in your behaviour will completely undermine any message that you might try to get across.
Tip 5
Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork! I know this is always a bit of a nightmare, but it is really important to make sure that your health and safety system is robust and that all aspects are demonstrable to a third party. For example, could you prove that you have trained your staff and that they know what they are meant to do?
Nigel Mair is a WAMITAB assessor and verifier and runs the North West Regional Assessment Centre, delivering WAMITAB qualifications and other H&S, waste and environmental training. If you have any questions for Nigel, please email them through to nigel@theskip.net
February 20, 2008 at 1:02 pm | Health & Safety | No comment
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New Year Resolutions
By Nigel Mair – our Health & Safety expert
By the time you read this article Christmas will have come and gone. I hope that you got everything that you wanted… remembering to recycle the cardboard boxes, of course! As the New Year starts it is traditional for us to think to the future and also to make resolutions to try and become ‘better people’. I therefore want to take this opportunity to make some resolution suggestions for you with a Health and Safety theme.
Resolution 1
The first resolution I think that you should make is to recognise that just because there haven’t been any accidents at your work doesn’t mean that everything is fine. In fact, in many cases it may be that an incident is lurking just around the corner, ready to leap out and bite you where it hurts!
This may sound a bit depressing, but I am afraid that the statistics back me up, with the waste industry still having an appalling safety record. To put this into some sort of perspective, all of the sites that I have visited over the last 12 months have had the potential for significant accidents. This will be of no great shock in a busy, vehicle based sector such as waste. What is perhaps more surprising is that at virtually every one there has been some activity that I have observed that has made me go “uh oh, that looks a bit dangerous!”
I know that it is obviously difficult to eliminate all risks from busy waste operations, but I am afraid that the law takes quite a strong view on your duties and under the HASAWA 1974 you need to provide “a safe place of work”. Therefore please don’t become complacent in the coming year and think that H&S just gets in the way of getting the job done… I can assure you that if there is an accident, then it most definitely will get in the way of work!
Resolution 2
If you can stick to resolution 1 then that is a good start, but I think that we should perhaps take the next step along the road to H&S saintdom.
The second resolution I would like to suggest is for you to think about your staff and the input that they can provide to your overall H&S. All too often staff are sidelined and viewed as being peripheral to the H&S processes within a company. If you were to take a look at your own organisation and ask yourself honestly, when would have been the last time that you actually asked your staff for their input on H&S?
You may think that this is an unnecessary inconvenience and I can almost hear you saying “Nigel, what are you on about, it is my business and I will do what I want.” This may be what you want to think, but again the law views things a little bit differently and in fact you actually have a legal duty to involve your staff through proper consultation.
Here is a suggestion for the coming 12 months… why not set up a simple series of meetings with some of your staff to actually listen to them about H&S? This is not about taking everything on board that they may say, but it is about providing a forum for them, listening to them and then giving them some feedback and involvement. To give you some idea of its value, I think that every time I have been out with a member of staff to watch them doing their job, perhaps as part of an NVQ assessment, they have mentioned some improvement, or safety issue that their employer should really know about, but has never bothered to ask! Take a moment to ask and listen and you may be surprised by the input that you will get from them.
Resolution 3
The final resolution I am going to mention really builds on the previous two and should be a regular part of your H&S system over the coming year. For number 3 I am going to suggest that you should carry out a H&S audit of your operations.
I am sure that you are close to what goes on at your work and that is great, but ironically it can also be a bit of a problem as you can often miss the obvious. In auditing terms the phrase ‘a fresh pair of eyes’ is often used. This does not have to mean using someone from outside the business (although this can be useful), as it is more down to a state of mind and being able to look at something from a dispassionate viewpoint, almost as if it was the first time you had seen it.
A good auditor should ask the sort of questions that might make you feel a bit uncomfortable – the why, how, when and who type of questions that nobody likes. Having said that it is certainly much better for these to be asked before an accident has happened, rather than as part of an incident investigation! Therefore plan to carry out an audit early in the New Year and use the results to shape your H&S approach for the remainder of the year – it will be time well spent.
Any accident is an accident too many and hopefully by adopting a positive approach to H&S this year can be a more profitable and safer one for all of us working within the waste industry.
Happy New Year!
Nigel Mair is a WAMITAB assessor and verifier and runs the North West Regional Assessment Centre, delivering WAMITAB qualifications and other H&S, waste and environmental training. If you have any questions for Nigel, please email them through to The Skip. contact us
January 22, 2008 at 12:35 pm | Health & Safety | No comment
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Health & Safety with Nigel Mair – Fire! Fire! Fire!
In this months article I thought that it might be useful to have a look at one of the hazards that is probably present on all sites – FIRE! This is particularly important as the legislation has recently changed, placing more responsibility on you as site owners.
Fire Principles
In order to appreciate the specific risks in your workplace it is perhaps helpful if we go back to basics and consider the elements that must be present for a fire to occur. In the majority of cases (there are a few specific exceptions), three things are necessary for a fire to occur: fuel, oxygen and heat. This is often referred to as the fire triangle and it forms a very simple and useful way of thinking about your fire control approach. In simple terms, if you take away one element, then the triangle will collapse and the fire will go out.
There are a number of approaches that you can use to remove one of these elements, with these generally referred to as Smothering, Cooling and Starvation.
Smothering is the extinguishing of the fire by limiting or stopping the flow of air to the seat of the fire. This results in the oxygen in the area being used up, with the fire eventually going out.
An example would be putting out someone’s burning clothes by wrapping them in a blanket, or when sand, or a similar material is put onto a fire.
Cooling is where a fire is extinguished by reducing the temperature and is based upon the principle that if heat is lost from the fire faster than it is generated by the combustion process then the fire dies away.
This is what happens when water is applied to a fire, with the heat being used up as the water is converted to vapour. In fact, six times as much heat is used to convert water into steam than it does to raise its temperature to boiling point. This means that if you do use water to put a fire out, then it should really be applied as a spray rather than a jet, ensuring that as a much heat as possible is drawn away from the fire as quickly as possible.
Starving is the technique of extinguishing a fire by limiting the fuel. This can be achieved in two ways:
• By removing compustible material from the neighbourhood of the fire; for example, buildings may be demolished to create a fire stop, or burning fuel tanks can be drained;
• By removing the fire from the neighbourhood of compustible material. This is perhaps a bit more difficult, but plant could be used to pull away a fire from other objects (obviously if safe to do so).
Smoke
When we think of fire we tend to focus on the hazard of the flame and heat, but this is not what we should really be worrying about. Combustion products and smoke are the real killers and are much more likely to get you first…..we should really call them smoke and fire doors, rather than simply fire doors.
Fire Legislation
This changed relatively recently, with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 coming into force in October 2006. This applies to virtually all premises and covers nearly every type of building, structure and open space.
The main requirements are:
• to carry out a fire risk assessment identifying any possible dangers and risks;
• consider who may be especially at risk;
• get rid of the risk, or reduce it as far as reasonably possible, dealing with any residual risk;
• make sure that there is adequate protection if flammable or explosive materials are used or stored;
• create a plan to deal with any emergency and, in most cases keep a record of your findings; and
• as always, review the whole process as necessary.
So what does this mean in practice?
A big change is that fire authorities no longer issue fire certificates and those previously in force will have no legal status. Nevertheless, if you do have a fire certificate then this may be a useful starting point when you are working through the controls you need to have in place.
One of the main things that you now need to do is to make sure that a fire risk assessment is carried out……remember that even if someone else carries this out for you, you will still be legally responsible.
You must also make sure that, as far is reasonably practicable, everyone on the premises, or nearby, can escape safely if there is a fire. When it says everyone, then it means everyone, to include employees, visitors and members of the public. You should pay particular attention to anyone who may need special help, such as resulting from a disability. Also, remember what we said about smoke, so don’t forget to factor that into your assessment…….if there was a fire where will the smoke go and what affect might that have on peoples’ ability to escape?
The process of carrying out a fire risk assessment is similar to that of any risk assessment and involves a systematic look at your entire workplace. Having said that there are a few extra things that you might also want to think about, such as your fire detection and warning systems – when was the last time you had a practice or drill? Do people know the correct safe means of escape in the event of a fire? If there is only one possible route, is this a fire-protected route (not forgetting about the smoke)?
Fire fighting equipment is often available in workplaces and as part of the risk assessment you will need to consider whether these are appropriate for the fire risks- remember that certain extinguishers should only be used on specific types of fires. Also, do staff know what they should do in the event of a fire? Should they have a go at putting it out? Have they been trained in how do to this?
This is a very big topic that I can’t really condense into a short article so I have only picked out some of the main features You can find some more information at www.firesafetyguides.communities.gov.uk.
Nigel Mair is a WAMITAB assessor and verifier and runs the North West Regional Assessment Centre, delivering WAMITAB qualifications and other H&S, waste and environmental training.
This article originally appeared in Issue 23 of The Skip magazine
June 19, 2007 at 9:00 am | Health & Safety | No comment
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