Category Archives: Accident Advice


Published · Updated

2021/2022 Work Related Accidents

Prioritising your legal requirements for employee health is one of the best investments you will make. Not only will this ensure that accidents and injuries are kept to a minimum, but you will also avoid large fines as a result of non-compliance.

After these statistics, the HSE will be hot on the tales of any business who tries to evade their legal responsibilities. So what can you do now to reduce work related accidents and injuries?

  1. Employee a health and safety officer – This may work for some larger businesses but not always for SMEs
  2. Ensure that you have regular risk assessment and monitoring for all parts of your business
  3. Invest in third party compliance services who can help you to implement and control all your health, safety and occupational hygiene needs.

We’re not saying that all businesses don’t take employee health and well being seriously. We know they do! Working closely with our customers, we able to help implement health and safety controls and measures that adhere to HSE legal frameworks.

Along with protecting your workforce from work related accidents and ill health, you also protect your business. The upfront cost of ensuring you achieve your legal requirements is outweighed by the cost of fines, sick days, and the cost of recruiting new employees if someone leaves due to stress or long-term ill health. So if your business needs a once over, we can definitely help.

 

Contact us if you have any queries.

 

Accident Investigation Toolbox Talk

Why have this talk? Understanding the root causes of accidents allows the organisation to make changes to control measures to prevent reoccurrence in the future.

What will this talk cover? Why accident investigation is important and how to support an investigation.

Accident Investigation Toolbox Talk

Accident Investigation Toolbox Talk

Immediately after an accident

If a serious accident or fatality has occurred you will need to shut down the site to prevent further injury and so that equipment/substances, etc can be investigated.

Explain the company policy on when this should happen or who makes the decision.

What should you do?

If you are involved in an accident investigation, whether internal or external, you should:

  • jot down your memories of where you were and what you were doing at the time of the accident while fresh, to refer to later
  • listen carefully to the questions and remain calm
  • state honestly what you saw, heard or did in the events leading up to, during and following the accident
  • try not to be influenced by what colleagues are saying
  • do not be afraid to say when you do not know the answer — guessing will not help anyone and will just delay any investigation
  • remember that the reason for the investigation is to learn about what happened to prevent the accident from happening again, it is not to assign blame.
Questions for employees
  1. Who should be informed in your organisation if an accident has just occurred?
  2. If you witnessed an accident, what sort of details should you note while you remember?

Do you have any questions for me?

Contact us for further information.

 

Published · Updated

RIDDOR reporting of COVID-19


You must only make a report under RIDDOR (The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013) when:

• an unintended incident at work has led to someone’s possible or actual exposure to coronavirus. This must be reported as a dangerous occurrence.
• a worker has been diagnosed as having COVID 19 and there is reasonable evidence that it was caused by exposure at work. This must be reported as a case of disease.
• a worker dies as a result of occupational exposure to coronavirus.

What to report

Dangerous occurrences

Read about RIDDOR 1

If something happens at work which results in (or could result in) the release or escape of coronavirus you must report this as a dangerous occurrence. An example of a dangerous occurrence would be a lab worker accidentally smashing a glass vial containing coronavirus, leading to people being exposed.

Cases of disease: exposure to a biological agent

Read about RIDDOR 2

If there is reasonable evidence that someone diagnosed with COVID-19 was likely exposed because of their work you must report this as an exposure to a biological agent using the case of disease report. An example of a work-related exposure to coronavirus would be a health care professional who is diagnosed with COVID-19 after treating patients with COVID-19.

Work related fatalities

Read about RIDDOR 3

If someone dies as a result of a work-related exposure to coronavirus and this is confirmed as the likely cause of death by a registered medical practitioner, then you must report this as a death due to exposure to a biological agent using the ‘case of disease’ report form. You must report workplace fatalities to HSE by the quickest practicable means without delay and send a report of that fatality within 10 days of the incident.

Make a RIDDOR report online

Find out more about reporting incidents 4

Contact us if you require further information.

Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives - News - Brentford FC

Published · Updated

Increase in the HSE FFI charge

hard hat and gloves PPEThe rate which the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) charges under its Fee for

Intervention (FFI)

cost recovery scheme has increased from £129 to £154 per hour as of 6 April 2019.

The fee is payable by organisations found by the health and safety watchdog to be

in material breach of health and safety law and, in terms of the requirements, the

employer (or self-employed person) is required to pay

the HSE for the time it takes to identify what is wrong and to put things right.

A material breach of health and safety law is something which an inspector considers serious enough that

they need to formally write to the business requiring action to be taken to deal with the issue.

Essentially, if the inspector gives a notification of contravention (NoC) after the visit, a fee will be payable.

The HSE has emphasised that organisations which do not break the law will not be liable for any payment.

In other words, duty holders who comply with the law, or where there is no material breach, will not be

charged FFI for any work that HSE does with them.

Therefore, where an inspector simply gives business advice, either verbal or written, no payment is required.

The FFI cost recovery scheme was designed and introduced in October 2012 with the aim of shifting some of

the costs of regulating health and safety at work from the taxpayer to those responsible for material breaches.

See previous Blog for FFI https://walkersafety.co.uk/2013/11/ffi-a-year-on/

Contact us for further information.

 

 

Published · Updated

Call for tougher penalties as gross manslaughter guidelines come into effect

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has called for penalties that “reflect the gravity” of offences and greater use of measures such as director disqualification and retraining, as new sentencing guidelines for gross negligence manslaughter come into effect.

From Thursday 1 November 2018, those convicted of the offence of gross negligence manslaughter in England and Wales will face longer prison sentences, up to a maximum of 18 years, as well as compensation orders.  Continue reading