At best, poor mental health is costing the UK economy the equivalent of 4% of GDP, or close to the annual spend on education. At worst, it’s killing us. As reported in the HSE provisional statistics for 2016/17, ‘work-related stress, depression or anxiety cases (new or longstanding)’ has now become the UK’s biggest work-related illness, overtaking musculoskeletal disorder cases. The … Read More
The 3 Legged Stool of Health and Safety Success
Regular readers will know that we’ve been celebrating health and safety successes over recent months and have covered ten success stories so far, all with different motivators to act and, hopefully, lots of good ideas around solutions to problems you’re likely facing in your own business today. There were three other candidate success stories lined up: Jacobs (partially covered in … Read More
New Safety and Health – From Hard Hats to Artificial Intelligence
You have probably seen the announcement that SHP Online and Safety & Health Expo have collaborated to introduce ‘New Safety and Health’. This is a campaign essentially focused on changing the perceptions of the health and safety industry and, in doing so, redefining the role of the health and safety professional and inspiring the next generation. This is to be … Read More
ISO 45001 – A Marriage of Culture and Digitalisation?
We last took a look at ISO 45001 at the end of September last year asking whether or not it was a panacea for UK health and safety or just another tick box exercise? As you know, ISO 45001 is the world’s first International Standard for occupational health and safety, replacing OHSAS 18001. Now that ISO 45001 has been published, … Read More
Engagement and Involvement at all Levels of the Company to Reduce Risks
By comparison to other types of business, quarrying is high-risk. The nature of the work and the machines involved mean health and safety is a major priority for most quarrying businesses. This includes Huntsmans Quarries, a Gloucestershire-based business with around 40 employees. Huntsmans Quarries’ story is one that all SMEs can learn from. This is because it did not take … Read More
How Technology Can Help Break Through the Health and Safety Statistical Plateau
Our last eBook on improving the health and safety culture in your organisation was well received so we decided to research other areas of interest as subjects for a new eBook. The area we quickly identified was the plateau in health and safety statistics as evidenced by Great Britain fatality rates. This data from the HSE shows that, in the last … Read More
Achieving Zero Lost Time Accidents in a High-Risk Industry
The sector with the highest average fatalities per 100,000 workers over the past five years is Agriculture with a rate of 8.44 versus a rate of 0.46 across all industry sectors. Despite this headline figure, there are companies making tremendous strides in keeping their workers safe and, indeed, some that can be held up as examples of health and safety … Read More
When Quality is Better than Quantity in Health and Safety
One of the dangers that companies face when trying to improve health and safety is going overboard on procedures and paperwork. This is often a fine line, but if you fall on the wrong side of it the impact can be significant. This is what the UK branch of Finning discovered. Finning is a distributor of plant manufactured by Caterpillar. … Read More
Health and Safety Issues in Utilities – A Primer
When you compare the utilities sector with sectors like manufacturing and construction, it has a relatively good health and safety record. Substantial risks remain in the sector, however, due to the nature of the work and the technologies and equipment used. The scale of the utilities sector is a factor too. It includes industries like electricity generation, electricity distribution, and … Read More
Safety Digitally – Why It’s Time to Bin Paper PTW
Have you applied for a credit card or set up a business recently? Maybe you had a survey on the house you were planning to buy? A kitchen re-design? New passport? Job application? There is an endless list with one thing in common, an absence of paper. And it’s been that way for years, decades even. One of the last … Read More
Creating the Right Health and Safety Culture at Board Level
If you ask any health and safety manager, they will say it is impossible to develop a truly effective health and safety culture in an organisation if you don’t have board-level participation. Participation is very different from buy-in where the board agrees to put in place a health and safety policy and then delegates all responsibility. Boards need to go … Read More
The Business Value of Health and Safety
We often see, quite naturally, businesses trying to justify the return they expect from their investment in health and safety products. With our own product, e-permits, it’s often based on time saving and other efficiencies arising from the replacement of paper systems. The safety benefits have to be supported by an ROI. A totally different approach has been taken by … Read More
