Health and Safety

 

Can I ensure my people comply with the legislation and regulations that impact my organisation?

Businesses across the World are finding that a failure to respond positively to legislative and directives from regulators and authorities could cost them dearly

 

Here we include just a few examples where the organisations probably believed they were doing a reasonable job of informing their staff of their duties and responsibilities. However, they clearly did not convince the bodies concerned that they had given their people sufficient support

 

Lewisham council fined £150,000 for failure to manage fall risks

A visitor to the Wearside Service Centre fell into a vehicle inspection pit striking her head while work was being undertaken at the site. Lewisham Council had failed to heed their own independent health and safety consultant’s findings from two sets of risk assessments that recommended guarding around or over the open pits. They also ignored HSE guidance on the need to guard against persons falling into vehicle inspection pits.
London Borough of Lewisham was found guilty of breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The council has been fined £150,000 and ordered to pay costs of £65,000

 

Council fined £150,000 for HAVS diagnosis

Wrexham County Borough Council has been fined after an employee was diagnosed with hand arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) in 2015. The HSE investigation found that the council had failed to address the issue of HAVS following an audit. It also found that although a number of HAVS
policies had been developed, they had not been implemented.
Wrexham County Borough Council pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The council has been fined £150,000 and ordered to pay costs of £10,901.35

Both of these Councils were aware of their duties but were found to have failed to address the problem area concerned. If either Council had records showing that not only had they policies and procedures designed to ensure that such incidents could not occur, but also that their staff had routinely completed individual assessments that proved they were very aware of their personal responsibilities the HSE undoubtedly would have taken this into consideration when making their findings

Using the EverydayComply solution the Councils could likely have avoided any issues with the H&SE by providing detailed historical evidence of their staff’s understanding of these duties

 

 

EverydayComply Assessment benefits

 

• General risk management – Identify areas that could put your organisation and your employees at risk and solve these potential problem areas before they have an adverse effect on the business
• Provides detailed evidence demonstrating that your staff are fully aware of their responsibilities in the event of any legislative challenges to the organisation
• Ensure that every member of your staff understand their responsibilities, both legal and commercial
• Identify problem areas where extra training may be required
  • Improve quality and effectiveness of any training given
  • Look for patterns in results across your entire organisation, high-lighting potential risk areas
• Record historical records for all assessments taken
• Build a history of empirical data, an individual cannot claim to not understand or know something when he/she has documented their understanding on a number of separate assessments – protecting your organisation as a whole
  • Seek patterns in an individual or team – Are the same team failing the assessments in the same area of knowledge? – Are there gaps in your policies or procedures or training that need to be addressed to compensate for these failings? – Is there a management issue to address?
  • Record trends against an individual or team – Identify problems before they happen allowing you to improve and protect your organisation as a whole
• Help management at every level of your organisation keep their team and employees safe and secure

Distribute changes / updates in law and policies across your entire organisation easily and measure your employees understanding of these changes