Archives for the Health and Safety category

‘Health and safety gone mad’; that well-worn phrase that’s nearly as high up on the Daily Mail’s list of go-to headlines as ‘x gives you cancer’. People love to point to supposed incidents of over the top safety regulations as evidence of a growing nanny state culture in Britain.

In reality, these stories that make the headlines tend to be exaggerated at best and are just plain made-up at worst.

In response, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has created a site dedicated to debunking the myths about Health and Safety regulations.

Even these guys have to wear hard-hats sometimes

Whilst some might seem quite funny, it is a serious issue that has badly damaged the reputation of Health and Safety as a concept. People believe these myths to be fact and then begin to view Health and Safety as over the top. This leads to people ignoring health and safety regulations on the whole, which results in an increase in serious injuries and deaths that could have otherwise been prevented.

As such the HSE is committed to disproving these wild claims in order to maintain the necessary regard for Health and Safety overall. Each month they choose a different myth and set out to prove that it has no actual basis in fact.

In that vein, we thought we’d come up with 5 of our favourites that the HSE has managed to disprove.

Need to learn or brush up on your Health and Safety regulations? Our Health and Safety courses are accredited by IOSH, the world’s biggest health and safety membership organisation.

Read the rest of "Health and Safety Gone Mad: HSE Myth Busting"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Health and Safety, News on November 9th, 2012| 4 Comments »

Risk Assessments are required for businesses as under UK law, but small and medium businesses often struggle to assign responsibility for the task or are unaware of what a risk assessment actually involves!

We launched our Risk Assessment course (the only one in the UK accredited by IOSH!) to plug the knowledge gap but we’ve decided to go one step further by producing a Risk Assessment template.

You can download the template as a Word doc or PDF, and then edit it with your company information. We will run through each item on the document in this post but we do highly recommend training to make sure that you are completing and documenting your risk assessments to meet Government specification.

For a more comprehensive Health & Safety training, we also run a 4-day IOSH Managing Safely course. This workshop also covers risk assessment in more detail and will teach you how to manage health and safety in the workplace in a way that meets UK Health and Safety Regulations.

Risk Assessment Template

First, download the risk assessment template:

Risk Assessment Template.doc | Risk Assessment Template.PDF

Obviously, you’re going to want your own branding and your own introduction, so the first thing we recommend doing is changing the header to your business name and removing all the text above the table.

This would be an ideal place to write down your expectations of employees so that everyone is clear.

Read the rest of "Risk Assessment Template Free Resource"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Health and Safety, News on August 3rd, 2012| No Comments »

We are pleased to announce the addition of Risk Assessment Training to our Health & Safety training options. It’s our second IOSH accredited course, joining our highly popular IOSH Managing Safely training course.

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is the only Chartered body for health and safety professionals in the world, and currently we are the only organisation to offer an IOSH accredited Risk Assessment course!

At the end of our 1-day IOSH Introduction to Risk Assessment training course you will be able to carry out effective, comprehensive risk assessments that meet industry standards. You will also take a short practical test at the end of the day resulting in an IOSH Risk Assessment certificate.

IOSH Risk Assessment Course Dates

The first available dates for our brand new Risk Assessment course are:

• 3rd October 2012
• 10th December 2012

If those dates aren’t suitable for you then it is also possible to arrange a private session either at your premises or at our training centre in Brighton. Please call us on 01273 622272 for a tailored quote. Read the rest of "NEW! Risk Assessment Training Accredited by IOSH"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Brighton, Health and Safety, News on July 23rd, 2012| 1 Comment »

Almost every person responsible for Health and Safety in the workplace has, at some point, had to consider how important the need for PAT testing is. Many people claim it’s a legal requirement – but is that a fact or a myth?

As we know that Health and Safety is so important to employers – yet surrounded by so much confusion – we offer a 4-day comprehensive Health and Safety course which is accredited by IOSH (the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health). Of course, protecting your employees from harm is your number one priority – but there are lots of other benefits of Health and Safety training as well.

Here are words from our trainer, Andrea, on the subject of PAT testing – and other Health and Safety myths. Read the rest of "PAT testing – Do You Need It?"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Health and Safety, News on May 21st, 2012| 5 Comments »

Meeting government requirements for Health and Safety, of course, has the ultimate goal of protecting your employees from harm. You would not want a workplace accident on your conscience; or to feel responsible for long-term effects from work on someone’s health.

Further to this, having staff trained in IOSH Managing Safely means reduced insurance premiums, enhanced local reputation, increased productivity, reduced absence, and protects you against legal costs – or even imprisonment!

Within the company, the role of managing health and safety usually falls to a manager or supervisor. It is vital that they undertake training in Health and Safety law and practices in order to fulfil this role and protect the rest of the staff.

Here’s some more on those ways that following Health and Safety practices can benefit your business:

1. Reduced Insurance Premiums

Proving that you have managers who are trained in Health and Safety issues will reduce your insurance premiums because, of course, it means you are less likely to make a claim. Not only that, but the actions taken to prevent injury or illness will mean those premiums stay low because no claims are made. Read the rest of "5 Benefits of Health and Safety Training"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Health and Safety, News on May 2nd, 2012| 1 Comment »

Health and Safety Training is vitally important for businesses to ensure they operate in a safe environment. Our IOSH Training course is accredited by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health and is designed to minimise risk at work to avoid some of the problems in the following guest post.

How to Prevent Workplace Injury

Some of us work in professions that come with the risk of serious bodily danger.  Construction workers, deep-sea welders, and tandem skydiving instructors, for example, may risk their lives each day simply by showing up for work.  Even those that operate a vehicle (for shipping, transport, or other reasons) may be prone to automobile accidents.  But the majority of people work at jobs that are eminently safer, whether in offices or the service industry, and don’t face these same hazards.  As a result, they might not be prepared for the possible dangers lurking in their otherwise safe work environment.  So if you have an occupation that you think could not possibly bring you harm, you might want to think again.  In order to prevent workplace injury, you first need to recognize that it could happen to you.

Be Aware of Dangers

Of course, it helps to be aware of your surroundings and see the potential threat lurking in items as seemingly innocuous as, say, a keyboard, a clean floor, or a box of paper.  These three items, in fact, represent the major causes of injury in an office environment.  “A keyboard?” you may be asking yourself, “How can a keyboard be harmful?” Read the rest of "Health and Safety – How to Prevent Workplace Injury"

Posted by Guest Author in Guest Blogs, Health and Safety, News on November 10th, 2011| 1 Comment »

Part of achieving your IOSH Managing Safely accreditation involves completing a project assessment about your workplace.  Here we’ve put together our guide to help you complete the assessment.

Each stage of the process will be covered thoroughly during the IOSH Managing Safely course, giving you plenty of time and opportunity to ask the trainer if you are not sure about anything.  The course is arranged so that you are able to complete the project bit by bit over the four days.

The project assessment is based on your own work environment.  The person marking the assessment will not be the trainer who taught you and will not know anything about your workplace.  While this gives you some valuable licence, which may be helpful, you will need to make sure you explain clearly things which may be obvious to you and those who work around you.  You also need to be consistent as each part of the assessment relates to the others.

As with all assessments, the best advice is to read carefully what each of the sections requires and take your time.

To gain the accreditation there is also a multi format exam to complete, we’ve put together some tips for completing the IOSH exam.

The project consists of a series of six forms you will need to complete and these follow a logical sequence: Read the rest of "Completing your IOSH Project Assignment: Help"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Health and Safety, News on July 22nd, 2011| No Comments »

Hazard Checklist – Location

Part 2 of our guide to completing your IOSH Project assessment looks at completing the Hazard Checklist.  On this sheet you are asked to identify three hazards associated with aspects of the workplace you have described in Part 1:

Description of the location

• Give a short, but adequate description of where the hazard is, making sure it makes sense in relation to your sketch /description of your workplace in Part 1.

Description of the hazard

• Only a short description is required, but it must relate to the location just identified.

Number and occupation of people affected

• Don’t forget to give the number, as well as the occupations of the people who may be affected – eg “ 3 engineers” or “1 secretary”
• Also, don’t forget to fill in the Company, Department and Site name at the top of the form.

Risk assessment recommended (Yes or no required)

• If, for some reason, you don’t recommend a risk assessment, you will need to explain why.  It is much easier to select a location and hazard that does require a risk assessment and tick the “yes” box!

Posted by Andy Trainer in Health and Safety, News on July 22nd, 2011| No Comments »