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Training is essential to the achievements of a business.  Perhaps its most positive benefit is better employees.  A company develop the potential of an employee, and part of the way a company encourages improvement is through training.  Often, good training is just as important as a good benefits package for an employee.

Health and safety training is essential in order to stay compliant with current regulations. Walker Health and Safety Services can offer various health and safety training in Shropshire and the West Midlands.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires you to provide whatever information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of your employees.

This is expanded by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which identify situations where health and safety training is particularly important, e.g. when people start work, on exposure to new or increased risks and where existing skills may have become rusty or need updating.

You need to assess the risks to your employees while they are at work and to any other people who may be affected by the way you conduct your business. This is so that you can identify the measures you need to take to comply with health and safety law.

We offer a full training program, contact us with your requirements for a tailor made program to suit your business.

Some companies who wished they had trained their staff. Please don’t fall into the mistakes they have made along the way.

http://press.hse.gov.uk/2015/telford-engineering-firm-fined-after-worker-suffers-crush-injuries/

http://press.hse.gov.uk/2015/company-fined-after-16-year-old-injured-by-machinery/

http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/lack-of-planning-and-training-lay-behind-roofworkers-fall

1. You must plan, organise and supervise work at height to ensure it is carried out safely. Begin by assessing the risk and include the height of the task, duration and frequency and the condition of the work surface. Don’t overcomplicate things. Remember, the legislation places emphasis on the elimination of the need to work at height, but if you cannot avoid it, you must prevent falls by either using an existing place of work that is already safe, or the right kind of equipment. Where this is not reasonably practicable, you must minimise the distance and consequences of a fall through the use of collective fall prevention measures (e.g. guardrails, barriers), collective fall protection measures (e.g. airbags, nets) and individual fall prevention and protection measures (e.g. work restraints, harnesses and personal positioning techniques).
2. It is important that you follow the risk assessments that you produce, together with the hierarchy of controls: avoid, prevent, mitigate.
3. Make sure you inspect and maintain work and safety equipment as appropriate.
4. Ensure workers are provided with training and instruction in fall prevention and protection measures.
5. Only permit working at height when weather conditions means it is safe to do so.
6. Write a plan for dealing with emergencies and for safe rescue.

If work at height is properly planned and organised, you will avoid the risk of prosecution and reduce costs. Don’t leave it to chance!

Contact us if you require assistance.

The penalties for companies and managers who are found to be negligent towards driver safety can be extremely severe. IAM Drive & Survive offer free workshops and seminars, you will fully understand your company’s risk exposure and how to comply with all legislation through implementing a Driver Risk Management programme.

If you’re coming along to a seminar/workshop, please take advantage of the FREE Driver Risk Management company self-assessment. This gives you a personal insight into what your organisation is and isn’t doing to minimise driver risk and provides the results as a pdf for yourself, colleagues and stakeholders. Bring the pdf along to the workshop as it will be referred to and you can ask questions based on your own results.

Register for the Free Event http://www.iamdriveandsurvive.co.uk/events/

If you require any assistance, please contact Walker health and Safety Services!

A safe system of work is a formal procedure which results from systematic examination of a task in order to identify all the hazards. It defines safe methods to ensure that hazards are eliminated or risks minimised.

As an employer, you are responsible for ensuring you have safe systems of work (SSW) in place. These are also known as safe operating procedures or method statements. These are detailed instructions to your employees, which set out how they should carry out tasks safely, particularly when it comes to more hazardous work processes, such as working in confined spaces. This starts with the process of risk assessment, during which, you must identify the significant hazards within your workplace, from which you develop your control measures. These should either remove or reduce the risks to your employees and anyone else who might be affected. This then results in a safe system of work, and the aim should be to standardise your working practices so that no one gets injured or is made ill.

Will a Safe System of Work be Enough?

Once you’ve implemented your SSW, you will need to implement training for workers in the correct procedures. You will then be expected to monitor the effectiveness of the systems to see how well staff comply with them and also review and update your SSW in the event of any incidents, changes in legislation, etc. Larger organisations can now expect much higher fines for breaches of health and safety involving fatal or serious incidents. Fines must be large enough to send out a message to directors and owners of organisations so that they are in no doubt that the courts will impose severe financial penalties for health and safety breaches in the future. HSE inspectors are targeting workplaces according to criteria based on previous history of accidents, complaints made, the work activities being undertaken, type of equipment in use or as part of a general campaign, e.g. asbestos.

Don’t get caught out!

Health and safety legislation requires employers to take proactive steps to remove or reduce risk of injury to employees in relation to the use of display screen equipment (DSE) and manual handling activities. But aside from the legal responsibilities, there are good business reasons for employers to address MSDs in their workplace. Some of the main causes of MSDs include: vibration, poor posture, heavy lifting, repetitive tasks, poorly designed work areas, incorrect lifting techniques and pulling or pushing heavy loads. Studies have indicated that factors such as workload, lack of rest breaks and reduced recovery time have an impact on MSDs. So how should you manage MSDs in your workplace?

8 Top Tips for Preventing MSDs in Your Workplace

1. Adopt an ergonomic approach which involves the workforce and safety representatives.
2. Ensure management and workers have an understanding of the issues and are committed to action on prevention. This commitment may be expressed through strong leadership and having appropriate systems of work in place. You should thus develop a local policy on prevention and management of MSDs and ensure that everyone is clear about their responsibilities.
3. Managers and workers need to be competent in order to prevent MSDs. The HSE recommends that prevention of MSDs should be an integral part of health and safety training, with emphasis on risk factors and how these may be avoided.
4. Carry out a risk assessment in respect of MSDs, ensuring that all parties are involved in the process and that everyone is clear about their responsibilities in the risk control process.
5. Provide managers and workers with training and information on MSDs so they can assist in the identification of the early warning signs. Training should also include safe working methods, correct operation and use of equipment and the importance of reporting early symptoms of MSDs.
6. Following confirmation of an MSD, prompt action should be taken to review the risk assessment and to verify that existing control measures are effective. You must investigate work-related injuries as appropriate.
7. Carry out regular checks to ensure the risk control measures are effective. Where monitoring uncovers deficiencies within the risk management programme, a formal review of performance should be carried out.
8. Plan work so that there are breaks or changes in activity, especially where an employee works exclusively at a computer.

Failing to identify and manage musculoskeletal risks in your workplace may lead to enforcement action. Make sure you protect the health of your workers.