IIRSM Blog

This week our guest blogger is Guy Schrecker, General Manager of HSE Passport

25 April 2013

Why do Temporary and Contract Workers Cause More Accidents?

I have always suspected that temporary workers have a higher incidence of accident in the workplace than their fully employed colleagues but, up till now, did not have any concrete evidence to support this.

I recently visited a very large food processing plant that needs to have a good deal of ‘flex’ in its workforce due to the seasonality of the industry. As a result they have the need to use up to 100 agency workers on any given day.

Now unusually (in my experience) they had very accurate accident data that included if the injury was to a fully employed worker, or to an agency temporary contractor. This data clearly showed the extraordinary figure that 80% of all reported accidents were caused by the agency workers who only represented 25% of the total workforce! What is not recorded is if they caused any accidents that resulted in the injury of the employed staff.

So, why would this section of the workforce cause such a disproportionate number of accidents?

In my opinion there are four main factors:

1. Unfamiliar surroundings: Temporary workers are, by their nature, ‘new’ to the workplace and so will be less familiar with their surroundings and where the dangers are.
2. Lack of training: It is unlikely that they have the same access to the company safety training as their fully employed colleagues. Their host company may only see them for a couple of days – so why would it invest in the same training as their staff?
3. EAL (English as an additional language) issues: Many workers in this demographic will have a limited understanding of the local language, thus they may not understand some of the instruction/ training that they receive.
4. Motivation: If a person does not see themselves as being a permanent employee, perhaps they are less minded to work in a considerate and safe manner. This many not only increase the risk to themselves but also to the people working with them.

So what can we do to reduce the risk?

Ensure that every new worker, regardless of whether they are fully employed or not, gets a full and proper site safety induction. Record the items discussed and get them to sign the document agreeing to be mindful of site specific dangers and control measures.

Ensure that they have all passed a course in basic health, safety, environmental and fire training. If the person comes with evidence of competency the host site can (once the above is completed), start them working straight away. If they come with no evidence of competence then the host site must make the time to give them health and safety training BEFORE they commence their assignment.

If they have a limited understanding of the English language, the host company must be prepared to spend some additional time and resource to ensure they understand how to work safely. It’s no good blaming the worker for not understanding if they have an accident as the responsibility will still fall back to the site operator.

And finally, if the temp is treated in a manner that makes them feel they are a secondary worker, they may behave like one. Temporary workers should be given the same respect, consideration and facilities as their full time colleagues, which should encourage them to behave in a safer and more cooperative manner and, ultimately reduce the accident rate.

Guy Schrecker, HSE Passport General Manager
Find out more about HSE Passport here.

27 March 2013

“Accident proneness” has been a popular concept in many organisations. Let’s face it; it is seductively simple. As a lapsed organisational psychologist, it is also attractive and could almost be explained by Darwin’s principle of the survival of the fittest. Identify the characteristics of individuals likely to have accidents and do not hire individuals who are considered high on those characteristics! There is an alternative strategy of course; identify those characteristics that are most highly correlated with accidents and attempt to change them in individual workers. The latter strategy is a training approach based on the measurement of individual differences and underpins the behavioural approach to safety.

It is the “seductively simple” aspects, however, that do seduce some organisations. It is easy to dismiss the propensity of certain individuals to be involved in incidents almost as an accident of birth. The attribution of accidents to certain individuals, followed by a shrug of the shoulders and a statement of “oh, not him again” is not as uncommon as we might like to think. Such an approach seemingly absolves management of responsibility and the need to investigate and discern patterns associated with training, equipment, behaviour and supervision. It is the easy way out.

As safety professionals we do need to appreciate that this attitude is still present in many organisations and we need to develop strategies and approaches that will enable us to change behaviour not just in the workforce, but in management as well. We often talk about safety culture in organisations; it should not surprise us just how one dimensional that culture can be!

Brian Nimick, IIRSM Chief Executive

08 March 2013

I was at the health and wellbeing conference in Birmingham earlier this week. Judith Hackett provided an excellent resume on the changes in HSE. However good the presentation and despite her reassurances, it was quite clear that there remain many concerns within our profession with regard to the changes. It is easy to argue that no one likes change, but is also all too easy to dismiss those who have concerns as Luddites.

The main areas of concern seem to centre the definition of “low risk” and a feeling that this will equate to “small”. Judith was at pains to point out that that this was not the case and that intelligence based intervention would ensure that this did not happen. The charging regime also came in for comment with a real concern that this had the potential to change the whole relationship between HSE and “client”. Having previously worked in the transport industry where the relationship between Traffic Commissioners and the industry became adversarial, I can sympathise with this concern.

It was clear that Judith understood the views of those who commented. Her views were conciliatory and sympathetic. However, it is quite clear that much work still needs to be done to address the many issues felt by the profession. Resistance to change occurs when individuals perceive that a proposed change is a threat – not only to themselves as individuals, but also to their values.

If we are to make this transition successfully, then HSE must continue to recognise the real concerns within the industry and through a process of facilitation and education, work with the profession and help it to fully buy into the rationale behind the changes.

Brian Nimick, IIRSM Chief Executive

08 February 2013

As you will no doubt remember from the news or from a previous blog, the new Boeing 787, Dreamliner, aircraft has been grounded globally following a series of incidents; two of which involved overheating of the lithium ion batteries resulting in smoke incidents. Fortunately neither of the incidents resulted in loss of life but they do serve to illustrate principles which all risk professionals, whether health & safety, quality or business risk should bear in mind.

One issue which can be overlooked is that of risk tolerance.

In a statement from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the failure rate of these batteries should be <1 failure per 10 million flight hours; in the case of the Dreamliner this has been 2 failures in approximately 100,000 flight hours, more than 200 times the design rate. This was identified, and based on this, the fleet was grounded but we still have to establish whether there has been a design problem or a manufacturing fault or even a problem which occurred at the aircraft assemble stage.

In the statement, the Head of the NTSB said “Our task is now to see if enough, and appropriate layers of defence and adequate checks were built into the design, certification and manufacturing of this (lithium ion) battery”.

Another important issue which we sometimes fail to appreciate is the way risks are interrelated; we often address individual risks in silos. In this example we can see a wide range of impacts on a range of stakeholders, including the battery manufacturers, Boeing, individual airlines and the travelling public.

If we consider the impact on Boeing, the Dreamliner has been a revolutionary new aircraft for which a total of 890 firm orders have been received. Were customers to lose confidence in the aircraft as a result of these incidents there would be a significant financial impact on Boeing’s business and a loss of its reputation. This is in a severely competitive market with only one major competitor, Airbus Industries.

Another issue for Boeing is that delivery has been seriously delayed and further delays may lead to compensation claims or even cancellation by the airlines.

The airlines themselves could also suffer financial loss through non-availability of the new fleet, particularly as they were viewing this as replacement for older aircraft. In cases such as ANA, JAL and LOT the new planes were already in service and there will be costs associated with providing alternatives. At the same time there could be a loss of confidence in the airlines by the travelling public.

A key lesson for risk professionals is that we always need to think through the possible consequences rather than stopping at the immediate outcome of the threat.

Barry Holt, IIRSM Director of Policy & Research

23 January 2013

The ILO recently revealed the result of its study into forced labour across the globe. While the top line figure of 20.9 million people trapped in jobs into which they were coerced, or deceived and from which they cannot leave is bad enough – dig a little deeper and there is worse to come.

It is a very sad fact that 26% of the total, that is 5.5 million, are children aged 17 or less. We all recognise that in many parts of the world, child labour is a fact of life. Indeed, many of the children at work help to support their extended family. We also recognise that such children should be in education, should be allowed to play and should have time to grow, both mentally and physically. Yet for many, this is not an option; the schools, the playgrounds and the time to grow up are just not there.

For those of us who come from one of the developed economies, it is very easy to take a moralistic view of child labour. We know it should not happen and most of us would not intentionally deal with organisations that set out to exploit child labour. However, it is a fact that it happens and despite our best intentions, we are not going to abolish child labour overnight.

IIRSM, is committed to the eventual abolition of child labour, both voluntary and coerced and we work closely with international organisations such as ICOH to help develop strategies and policies to bring this about. In the meantime, as individual professionals, let us work together and put pressure on employers to ensure as far as possible that they provide health and safe places of work.

Brian Nimick, IIRSM Chief Executive

N.B. You can read IIRSM's director of Policy and Research Barry Holt piece on forced labour in the March 2013 edition of HSW (out in February)

10 January 2013

Having delivered many training courses in many countries, I have frequently tried to address the issue of accidents and near misses. Two recent items on the BBC News website have made me wonder to what degree there is still no common understanding.

The two incidents (accidents?) occurred at Boston’s Logan Airport and worryingly involved two of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The first was a fire which broke out as a result of a battery fault and led to smoke in the cockpit after passengers had disembarked whilst the second involved a spillage of 150L (40 gallons) of fuel as a plane was preparing to depart. Whilst the first incident was subject to an investigation, the US National Transportation Safety Board, according to BBC News, did not investigate the second as “it was not an accident”. They did not give the definition of an accident which they use or their criteria for whether to investigate. However, I think that most health and safety professionals would ask the question, whether in the case of a near miss, there was the potential for a serious injury and if there was, would investigate as if the injury had occurred.

When we were studying for our professional qualifications most of us will have considered the Heinrich Triangle and the ratios of severities. Although recently there has been criticism of the Heinrich approach, the accepted frequency of near misses gives us a major opportunity to identify potential injury causes before any harm occurs. As a result organisations with a real commitment to managing employee health and safety try to obtain data about as many of these incidents as possible and apply the concept of injury potential as a criterion for selecting the level of investigation.

In the case of aviation safety the public perception is that an incident is always potentially serious and I am sure that they would expect a thorough investigation, particularly in the case of a new airliner which is due to enter service with many of the world’s leading airlines. Failure to investigate and to be transparent about the results and actions, can seriously affect confidence in the airliner and the reputation of the airline using it. In fact is has just been reported that yesterday there was a further incident with a 787 when brake problems resulted in cancellation of a flight.

From a passenger and public safety perspective I would hope that these would be investigated and from a business point of view we need to consider risk communication. A spokesperson for one airline that has ordered the plane, commented that “It’s a new plane, and some minor glitches do happen. It’s not a cause of concern.” (Reuters). True perhaps, but hardly reassuring.

Barry Holt, IIRSM Director of Policy & Research

This week our guest blogger is Connexion2 Managing Director Craig Swallow

20 December 2012

Retail remains the largest private sector employer in the UK with close to three million people employed. In 2010/11 retail crime is estimated to have cost the U.K. industry a staggering £1.4 billion with a significant increase in violence directed at retail staff.
Many risks within the retail sector remain the same, such as the risk of theft and/or the risk of verbal abuse, however the time of risks, whether day or night has changed, with thieves becoming increasingly brazen.

More and more retailers are seeking to cover store opening times with ‘single staffing’ as a way of reducing overall operational costs. These factors combined with a change in risk locations within a retail store, such as attacks not only being at point of sale, means that risk profiles are changing.

The traditional ‘fixed panic alarms’ most commonly used within retail are limited in the help they can provide to vulnerable lone retail staff in the situations mentioned above. Statistics show at least 35,313 retail staff suffered physical or verbal attacks or threats in 2010/11.

Many security measures typically used within the sector aren’t able to capture the events and so many organisations are now changing to lone worker alarms for monitoring and recording purposes as well as their increased versatility and flexibility. To ensure a police escalation, such lone worker alarm solution providers must be audited and approved against the lone worker British Standard, BS8484.

A growing number of false alarms, combined with poor investment in modern alarming systems and an absence of robust reporting mechanisms is said to have lead to a strain in relationships between retailers and police forces.

Unique Reference Numbers (URNs) are the most effective way to elicit a police response and with many fixed PA’s, are often held by each individual store. The Association of Chief Police Officers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (ACPO) has adopted a different model for lone worker device’s URNs, namely that they are allocated to the Alarm Receiving Centre and not to a specific lone worker device, user, or store and so lowers costs, particularly for large multiple retail businesses and helps to maintain a good relationship with police forces.

With many lone worker services, the URN is held at the Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC), not each individual store, helping to keep costs down and limit police wastage whilst also guaranteeing a level 1 police response – the highest available response. In order for an ARC to receive a URN, they must be approved against the British Standard, BS5979 Cat II and also be BS8484 approved (the British Standard for lone workers).

False alarms require valuable police time and are expensive to attend. In 2010, ACPO classified a total of 212,987 false alarms. Figures compiled by the British Security Industry Association (BSIA) for the first six months of 2012 show that a total of 108,726 ARC managed lone worker alarms were in use in the UK In the same period a total of 780 alarms were passed to the police, of which only five were then subsequently classified as being false, representing a percentage of 0.64% compared to 85% for traditional alarm systems.

Whilst the volume of lone worker alarms deployed is significantly less than traditional alarm systems it is clear to see that the percentage of alarms that are deemed false and have incurred police time is significantly less.

Because lone worker device based systems deliver retailers a better and easier to implement solution that yields a lower number of false alarms, it is highly likely that more will continue to be deployed. Employers are therefore able to deliver a better ‘duty of care’ to their at risk employees, for a lower price, to help during such tough economic times.

For more information on Connexion2 you can visit their website or follow them on Twitter

Craig Swallow, Managing Director of Connexion2

13 December 2012

Our new Chairman is Peter Hall. Keith Scott stepped down but remains on the Board. It is some five years since Keith became Chairman and I am sure that all will agree, that over these past five years, the Institute has developed and enhanced its reputation both in the United Kingdom and internationally.

Members will be aware that the Institute has been heavily involved with both the UK Government and the HSE over recent years. We have successfully represented the voice of the profession through the Lord Young review and the Löfstedt review. Importantly, we are now seen as a major stakeholder and are fully engaged with the processes of influencing the health and safety agenda in the UK.

Keith’s Chairmanship also covered a period of intense work to redefine our international credentials. Overseas membership has grown by 61% over this period and importantly, in parallel with the development of our international branch structure, we find ourselves involved more and more with helping to influence the health and safety agenda overseas. Currently, we are engaged with the Nigerian government, the rewrite of Construction Regulations in Dubai and the implementation of the Abu Dhabi Emirate Occupational Safety and Health Strategy.

Through our Chairmanship of the International Commission on Occupational Health, we are also involved at NGO level in developing new ways of thinking about common occupational health issues and in helping to develop practical solutions. In India, we have been working with partners to develop and enhance the role of the health and safety professional and the contribution that they can make to this vibrant and developing country.

We have also recognised the need to become involved with the developing European Agenda and are working closely in partnership with the European Occupational Safety and Health Agency. This cooperative stance had led to Barry Holt, IIRSM’s Director of Policy and Research, being co-opted onto a European Union steering committee and the agreement by EU OSHA to provide a Director on IIRSM’s Board.

All this together with active contacts as far afield as Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Pakistan, Kuwait etc. means not only that IIRSM has developed into a truly international body, but is instrumental in representing the interest of the profession in over 70 countries world-wide and is seen as an important partner by many governments and NGO’s.

Brian Nimick, IIRSM Chief Executive

23 November 2012

I really believe that most health and safety professionals attempt to bring as much objectivity as possible into ensuring that people whom they influence have as accurate a perception of the risks which they face as possible. However, we still see the ‘elf and safety accusations in the media and in my view it is a sad reflection on the situation that it has become necessary for HSE to set up their ‘myth busters’ panel.

However at a different level it is important that we consider how we can create an accurate perception of the new risks which arise in this rapidly changing society.

An area of risk which has, for decades now, seen the public influenced more by emotion than objective fact has been the nuclear industry. The basis of design in this industry has always been to achieve a very remote probability of failure. However, if people are asked what they understand by a probability of 1 in a million some people will say that it won’t happen for a million years whilst others will feel that this doesn’t count as the consequences of a failure can be so high. This is an example where communication of facts is a critical factor.

On a personal note, I should by now be either suffering from asthma or even dead!! When I left university I was carrying out metallurgical research to develop catalysts. This involved two substances which at that time were perceived as ‘safe’: powdered platinum (now a known respiratory sensitiser) and asbestos!! I hate to imagine the results of a risk assessment of this task now.

In the present climate it is probably more important than ever to ensure that we have accurate risk data for the range of new and emerging risks. These include issues such as genetically modified organisms which many automatically assume will lead to mutations and nanotechnology where we have seen articles referring to the creation of “grey gunge”. Conversely we get bombarded by those with vested interests telling us about the wonderful benefits which these will bring.

One source of help is the EU OSHA which has established their Enterprise Survey on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER) whose reports can be accessed at the EU OSHA website (http://osha.europa.eu).

At a more local level, how many health and safety professionals have ever conducted a risk perception study within their organisations? Try one, you may be in for a surprise.

Barry Holt, IIRSM Director of Policy & Research

N.B. IIRSM and the Univeristy of Warwick are running a Risk Communication forum on 29 January 2013 in London. Find out more here.

MIHTE Conference 2012 Diary

The 1st Malaysia International Healthcare Travel Expo (MIHTE 2012) 05 - 07 November 2012 is being held to mark the rapidly emerging and highly lucrative global healthcare travel industry.

IIRSM Chairman, Keith Scott and IIRSM Board Director, Dr Su Wang are representing IIRSM at the Expo. You can read their daily updates below.

Day 1 - 05 November 2012

Monday 5th November and Su and I have just attended the welcome networking event. The first impressions are of good organisation and a friendly welcome to over 900 delegates from around the World. Already we have had questions and comments regarding Risk Management and have been impressed with how important the medical providers take the subject. It has been interesting to note some comments that perhaps their recent efforts to publicise the health and safety standards have been focussed on local inhabitants. Su and I are looking forward to tomorrow and our first full day of conference.

Keith Scott, IIRSM Chairman

Day 2 - 06 November 2012

MIHTE was launched on 06-11-12 by the Malaysian Minister of Heath (Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai), highlighting the importance given by the Malaysian government to this subject. We are told there are 900 delegates from many countries from the Asia Pacific, Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, Europe, Americas, and Far East.

Today saw some insights into the issues surrounding health tourism and how health, safety and risk management are critical issue for the providers to deal with.

We had some interesting presentations on economic impacts on both countries where the patient lives and where they travel too. Additional spending in one country will mean that spend is lost from the home country thereby having a detrimental impact on local services. This can be positive or negative in that waiting lists may be reduced but then reduced usage may mean that it is not cost effective to replace equipment or services if underused etc.

Health and safety standards for non-clinical issues were raised as important to reassure those contemplating travel to other countries. In addition, issues around governance and legal liability were raised as issues which need to be addressed when providers consider entering into the market place.

Ensuring that low cost is not the main driver was raised as an important trap to avoid and quality of service, success rates, regulations and certification need to be transparent and publicised. The marketing needs to recognise that the potential patient is actually a customer who may need to have access to a wider range of information than has been available to date.

There were good speakers on marketing and the latest techniques in online marketing. Something we may be able to use for IIRSM’s benefit.

We also met some important players in the Health department of Malaysia and delegates from far and wide. So all in all it was a good day for learning and networking.

Topics today included:
Growth of global medical travel, and its impact of origin and destination Countries
Healthcare Travel, Malaysian style- taking a step beyond global norms
Bringing quality and affordable Healthcare, across boundaries
Combining leading edge clinical practice and Corporate Social Responsibility and lessons learned in a land far beyond
Health Tourism Facilitators, emerging roles, opportunities and challenges
Branding: the most important tool in marketing and packaging global medical tourism
Online Marketing, turning the 'window shopper' into a paying patient

Keith Scott, IIRSM Chairman & Su Wang, IIRSM Board Director

Day 03 - 07 November 2012

It is the last day of the conference today and we had another packed day of great speakers from around the World. the topics included the concept of traditional Chinese medicine and integration of Western medicine to enhance patient care and improve recuperation and rehabilitation.

It was interesting to learn about 'Wellness' and the definition used by one provider as dealing with the mind, body, spirit in a conducive environment.

Speakers also touched on the need to have evidence based standards and regulation, now where have we heard that one before? (the loftstedt review)

In addition we had comments around how important accreditation is for international, external recognition with the aim of developing trust and confidence.

We met some more great contacts who work in the USA, Middle East, Malaysia and Kenya.

Tomorrow we leave Kuala Lumpur and venture out to visit medical facilities. I am off to Melaka.

Keith Scott, IIRSM Chairman

Day 04 - 08 November 2012

Day 4 and I travelled to Melaka, south East of Kuala Lumpur. We visited two hospitals and they were worlds apart. The first was a private venture run as a charity, and very new. The design of the building was focussed on ensuring that patients had minimal travel between treatments and there is a hotel wing for patient’s relatives to stay. They have on-suite facilities and the recreation areas is decorated and furnished in a variety of styles reflecting the ethnic backgrounds and with a separate room furnished European style. The second made me feel more at home as it was just like any NHS hospital. Notable in that the patients have to move round the hospital to access the services. Another great day of learning how the health providers do their work in Malaysia and a practical view of their standards.

Keith Scott, IIRSM Chairman

Day 05 - 09 November 2012

Today I visited the Mahkota Medical Centre in Melaka. It was very interesting to meet Sally Tan the General Manager. Sally is also the person responsible for occupational health and safety at the medical centre. We had an interesting discussion about the holistic safety of patients who travel from overseas to have treatment. I highlighted the example of a patient having reduced mobility, staying in a local hotel. I asked if Sally communicated the restricted mobility information to the hotel so that the hotel can locate the patient near to fire exits on lower floors and if she checked to see if help would be provided in the event of a need to evacuate the hotel.

Sally indicated that she would consider liaising with the hotel to discuss how they can better communicate the safety requirements for patients recovering off hospital premises.

Sally has a regulated health and safety committee established and she may consider inviting the safety officers from the hotels to improve hazard information.

So a great end to the week.

Tomorrow Su Wang has a meeting with the organisers of the conference, which hopefully will allow us to contribute to helping the Malaysian health travel industry consider the holistic safety of patients.

I must say that I have generally been very impressed with the standards of health care which I have seen. However, I think there is a little more we can do to help raise awareness of general safety issues.

Keith Scott, IIRSM Chairman

Today was another full day: we visited 2 hospitals in Ipoh. Fatimah is a not-for-profit hospital, and was founded by a German priest, and today still retains its mission of serving the community and the poor.

I was particularly impressed by their "baby hatch"' in response to abandoned babies. They have saved 6 babies since this was innovated circa 9 months ago. It is believed these babies may have been abandoned by nationals from neighbouring counties who come to Kuala Lumpur to work. One abandoned baby had hydrocephalus, so we can speculate one reason why these babies were abandoned. Prior to the "baby hatch"' these babies were found drowned, or found dead. The baby hatch is an opening in the wall, with a crib behind it. It is positioned in Casualty, and when the hatch door is opened, a buzzer sounds in Casualty, so staff are alerted immediately. To give the mother confidentially, the hatch is shielded by a wall, and the mother (we assume it is the mother) is given privacy and anonymity. Babies needing medical attention are treated, and eventually handed over to Welfare for onward care, for example, for adoption.

Another feature which made Fatimah Hospital special in my eyes, is their taking the views of the community seriously. The hospital is unique is in that, in addition to the Board of Directors, there is a Board of Visitors, who contribute how the hospital is managed, serviced, and designed. Needless to say Fatimah Hospital has a full modern range of medical facilities, equipment, and specialist services, as similar tertiary hospitals.

For further information on Fatimah Hospital, check out their website: www.fatimah.com.my

Su Wang, IIRSM Board Director

02 November 2012

As I write this the full extent of the impact of hurricane Sandy is still being assessed. Four days after the event, people are still being rescued and the final cost in terms of lives lost and damage to homes and business is still far from clear. What is clear, however, is that the final bill, particularly in terms of lives lost, would be much greater without the pre-emptive actions taken to mitigate the impact of the storm.

Planning, prevention and preparation are a key part of any business continuity management system and have direct read across from civil contingencies planning. The activity begins with understanding the business to identify potential risks and threats to critical business activities both internally and from the external environment. It is in this strategic assessment process that risk managers and health and safety professionals have a key role to play. It is unfortunate, therefore, that in many organisations, occupational health and safety is divorced from the business planning process. Health and safety is often placed in a silo and little credence given at the strategic level as to the potential impact of major incidents on reputation, finance and operations. Instead, health and safety interventions are seen as a net cost rather than a potential benefit to the strategic direction of an organisation.

IIRSM, through its contact with governments, industry, business and health and safety professionals works hard to develop the recognition that occupational health and safety interventions need to be seen in a broader strategic context and that they are enablers rather than inhibitors. Risk managers and health and safety practitioners have an enormous contribution to make to business continuity preparations and need to be bought into the strategic business planning processes. Not to do so, has the potential to increase the opportunity for financial, operational and reputational damage. Want proof – then ask BP, Perrier or Union Carbide!

But, for the moment, let us think of those affected by Sandy and those who are working hard to help them.

Brian Nimick, IIRSM Chief Executive

24 October 2012

The current EU OSHA Healthy Workplace Campaign is focussing on the topic of “Working together for risk prevention” and IIRSM is one of the Campaign Partners. The campaign is addressing issues such as worker participation, leadership, communication and management commitment. It has just been announced that a specific programme will be established to address the topic of benchmarking. A Steering Committee has been set up to drive the initiative and IIRSM has been invited to be a member of the Committee. The Institute will be represented by Barry Holt, Director of Policy & Research and the inaugural meeting will be held in Brussels on Nov. 27th, 2012.

In addition the project manager for the current campaign is Dietmar Elsler from the EU OSHA, who is a member of the IIRSM Board of Directors.

This initiative should be of interest to all organisations as the subject of benchmarking is high on the agenda for health and safety professionals and this project will provide practical guidance on how this can be achieved effectively.

IIRSM are pleased to be able to contribute to the activities of EU OSHA whose work influences legislation and standards within the UK

Barry Holt, IIRSM Director of Policy and Research

This week our guest blogger is IIRSM Fellow Anne Mallory.

09 September 2012

Health And Safety Executive’s Fee For Intervention (FFI) Scheme

The Health and Safety Executive’s Cost Recovery Scheme (Fee for Intervention) came into effect on 1 October 2012, under regulations 23 to 25 of the Health and Safety (Fees) Regulations 2012. These Regulations put a duty on the Health and Safety Executive to recover its costs for carrying out its regulatory functions from those found to be in material breach of health and safety law. Guidance on the Application of Fee for Intervention (FFI) is available on the HSE website (HSE47).

The scheme has been introduced so that if businesses commit a material breach, in other words a contravention of health and safety law where a written notice would be issued to the duty holder by a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector, then the business should pay for the time the HSE spend on putting matters right. The fee is based on the amount of time that the inspector has had to spend identifying the material breach, helping businesses to put it right, investigating and taking enforcement action. This has to be seen as a step in the right direction where those who break health and safety laws receive a financial penalty which will be proportionate to the seriousness of the breach reflected in the time spent by the HSE inspector.

A recent survey carried out by legal firm DAC Beachcroft when questioning more than 100 organisations across a range of industries, 50 per cent admitted they did not understand the meaning of a material breach. The survey also revealed that a lack of clarity over the term material breach which could lead to different interpretations depending on the individual inspector involved.

The scheme only applies to work carried out by HSE inspectors and not other enforcing authorities for example local authority environmental health officers. FFI will apply to all businesses inspected by the HSE including public and limited companies, general, limited and limited liability partnerships and Crown and public bodies with some exceptions.
The exceptions include self-employed people who do not put other people at risk by their work, businesses that are already paying fees to the HSE for work through other arrangements, licensable work with asbestos and businesses that work with certain biological agents.

When deciding whether a duty holder is in material breach of the law, HSE inspectors must apply the guidance and principles of the HSE’s existing enforcement decision making frameworks, the Enforcement Management Model (EMM) and the Enforcement Policy Statement (EPS).

The EMM principles are used by inspectors in making decisions about enforcement action. The underlying principle of the EMM is that enforcement action should be proportionate to the scale of health and safety risks identified and to the seriousness of the breach of law.

The cost of inspector time has been stated as £124.00 per hour and in the guidance on the application of FFI there is a description of the methodology used for calculating the amounts payable (Appendix 2 HSE 47).

The FFI scheme could potentially dramatically increase the costs to companies of a material breach and whilst the methodology has been set out as to how the amount is calculated until a material breach actually happens the precise figure is difficult to estimate. This could be a very significant amount to a business and puts a lot of responsibility on HSE inspectors to account, record and justify their time. The definition of a material breach requires clarification so that interpretation is standardised and applied in a consistent way otherwise there is a risk of weakening the relationship between the regulator and the duty holder.

Anne Mallory FIIRSM, Director of Mallory Health and Safety Consultants Ltd

This week our guest blogger is IIRSM Fellow Rob Tuttey.

18 September 2012

Proposed changes to RIDDOR and reporting of non-employee injuries

A flurry of HSE activity has taken place since the release of Prof Löfstedt review and number of open consultations are taking place to remove, reduce or simply leave alone approved codes of practice and legal series documents, one of which under consultation is RIDDOR. It was only in April that the over 3-day reporting period was extended to over 7-days and the period to report extended to 15 days from 10, but this proposal goes much deeper. This is about the focus of HSE and how the inspectors respond to intelligence gathered on incidents. It is about cleaning up the statistics so high risk / serious consequence events are investigated by the HSE and time normally spent following up minor incidents and administration costs are reduced. Nowhere else is this more apparent than when a non employee, such as a customer in a store who grazes a knee, ends up going to hospital and then the employer has to report it under RIDDOR the same as a Major Injury.

Whilst any injury can be seen as unacceptable, the cost of administering these types of reports and time spent responding to and liaising with inspectors (mainly Environmental Health Officers) can be significant given the sheer quantity of footfall each day that pass through these types of premise. Visits rarely remain focussed on just the event reported and can be influenced by many other factors. I remember one claims manager at large retailer quoting me “ 1 in 2 customer RIDDORs result in a claim”. How many claims letters arrive asking for sight of the F2508 fuelling the perception that if it was a RIDDOR, then there must be fault and we must settle the claim quickly to contain costs. At a forum of H&S professionals, I recall example after examples of disproportionate intervention by the enforcing authority over minor injuries involving the public following submission of an F2508 where as some more serious employee major injuries had gone un-inspected and not investigated.

This current consultation covers many changes and I support the move to simplify this sometimes complex piece of regulation. However the bit I am really interested in, is this proposal to remove the requirement to report non-fatal accidents to people not at work. This covers for example, member of the public, customers in retail premises, users of leisure facilities, residential and nursing home service users, students and school children and volunteers working for charities. Nearly all of these are covered by Local Authority rather than the HSE and how will they gather their intelligence if not by the F2508? For some sectors like residential and nursing care homes, this will be picked up by other agencies such as the CQC and Safe Guarding teams, recent memoranda of understanding have been established to ensure this happens, but what about the rest? The consultation states figures from the Local Authorities are not available.

I’m sure many H&S Practitioners and employers up and down the country will welcome this proposal and see the benefits of removing such a reporting burden, and hopefully address the issue of disproportionate enforcement and intervention following a report. For organisations with established and dedicated safety resources, I’m less concerned – however for those without access to, or choose not to play by the rules and appoint competent safety advice, are we talking about self regulation here? How will this type of organisation e.g. a smaller retailer respond to customer injuries that aren’t fatal given the reduction in planned inspections of low risk premises? Even a minor injury might be masking serious H&S failures and non-compliances which could of been picked up via an inspection – if the F2508 invite never gets sent, will they investigate? how will the inspector find out about those accidents that aren’t serious enough to be reported by the emergency services? and could a minor non-compliance be masking or lead to bigger things? Could it be that whilst the desire is to tighten up the procedures for making personal injury claims, claimant’s solicitors will fill the gap of gathering that evidence instead, and informing the HSE and local authority of their concerns?

The full consultation can be accessed on the HSE website here and you have until 28th October to respond.

Rob Tuttey FIIRSM, Head of Health & Safety at Bupa Care Services UK

22 August 2012

Although the Robens Report, on which our current legislative framework, the Health & Safety at Work, etc. Act, is based is now 40 years old, last year’s review by Prof. Ragnar Löfstedt and his committee found that in essence it was still a sound piece of legislation. While implementing a risk based approach to health and safety management, it did provide a mechanism for the introduction of more specific legislation which incorporates the provision for public consultation on any proposals to introduce, repeal or revise regulations.

For example in his report, Prof. Löfstedt proposed a review of RIDDOR to provide clarification for businesses in addition to the proposal in the previous year’s review by Lord Young, to increase the 3-day reporting requirement to 7 days. This has resulted in the publication, by HSE, of a consultative document which is open for public comment until October 28th 2012.

In what seems to be an unusually busy period for our health and safety regulators we have also seen consultative documents published on subjects as diverse as:

• Revoking fourteen legislative measures and seven Statutory Instruments which are felt to be no longer applicable

• Reviewing the format of Approved Codes of Practice with a view to making them more readily understandable by business

• Exempting some categories of self-employed workers from health and safety legislation where their activities are not deemed to present a risk to others

• Implementation of the European Directive on prevention of sharps injuries in hospitals.

Of these, the last three are still open for comments.

All these documents are available for download from the HSE website (www.hse.gov.uk) together with forms on which responses can be made.

This consultation process provides all stakeholders with an opportunity to help ensure that the changes are appropriate and acceptable. But this will only be achieved if a sufficiently high proportion of stakeholders participate. As a key stakeholder IIRSM will be presenting a response but we would always encourage our members to make their views known to HSE and also to send them to us so that they can also be incorporated in the Institute response. We have already had some responses from members to the RIDDOR consultation and further thoughts on this and the others would be welcome. These should be sent to myself at barry_h@iirsm.org, as I shall be coordinating our responses. Please take this opportunity to be constructive and help shape these changes.

Barry Holt, IIRSM Director of Policy & Research

02 August 2012

As London basks in the glow of hosting the Olympics, it has gone out of its way to look after our international visitors. Olympic Ambassadors seem to be everywhere – advising and helping our international guests to get the best out of both the Games and London. It only a shame that there appear to be some employers who are not willing to do the same for our other army of international visitors, the 5.7% of the workforce that is made up of non EU nationals most of whom work in the 3D jobs – dirty, demanding and dangerous.

The HSE highlight in their report on migrant workers (RR502), that there are no precise numbers for migrant workers, nor is there any specific method for identifying whether or not they face any specific risks. However, interviews of over 200 such workers suggest that up to a third will receive no formal Health and Safety training and the remainder only little more and as a result, there is a widespread lack of knowledge of basic health and safety including fire safety.

More worryingly, those working with chemicals had little knowledge of what they were working with or the associated risks and up to 25% admitted to having been involved in or having witnessed an accident. This does suggest a higher level of incidence than for EU workers. Underreporting may well be a serious issue; many said that they did not report incidents concerned that their employers would see them as a risk and would dismiss them. Coupled with this low level of knowledge of their rights was an underlying perception that they alone were responsible for their own health and safety and that their employer had little or no responsibility.

The UK prides itself in being among the leaders in the development and application of health and safety legislation, systems and processes. The success of the Olympic Delivery Authority in delivering the safest capital building project ever will become a case study for many. Should there ever be a Health and Safety Olympics, I have no doubt that the UK would head the medal tables. Is it not shameful, therefore, that in a country which prides itself on leading the way in health and safety, that nearly 6% of our workers may not be getting the same level of protection that the rest of us consider our right?

Brian Nimick, IIRSM Chief Executive

09 July 2012

HSE has just published the latest data on fatal workplace accidents. Provisional data for the 12 month period to the end of March 2012 shows that there were 173 fatal injuries compared with a final total of 175 for the previous period. The rate of fatal accidents, 0.6 per 100,000 workers has remained the same. While it is still too early to say with certainty that the downward trend of previous years has stalled this will provide ammunition for those predicting dire results from the cuts in the HSE budget.

If we look at specific industries there is some encouragement in the fact that there has been a slight reduction in both raw numbers and accident rates for both construction and agriculture, two of the traditional ‘high risk’ industries.

However, while we tend to focus on the numbers this is neglecting some of the other consequences of workplace accidents. I remember some years ago being invited to speak to the main board of a major UK manufacturing company. After the directors had finished their board meeting they were clearly unsure why they were being asked to stay for this briefing. When the CEO introduced the health and safety talk he did it by asking how many of them had ever had to tell an employee’s family that their loved one would never come home from work again. From that moment I had their undivided attention.

Remembering this, I was pleased to see that in introducing the new figures, HSE Chair, Judith Hackitt, stressed that each of these fatal accidents represented a real person whose death would cause sorrow to their families, friends and workmates. A workplace accident does not only affect the individual themselves but has a wider impact both within the workplace and within society itself. Health and safety professionals since the days of Heinrich have attempted to quantify the financial impact of workplace injuries and increasingly we are seeing return on investment being used, appropriately, to justify expenditure of improved controls. Unfortunately, no-one has yet found a way to measure the private or societal impact resulting from the unnecessary loss of life resulting for workplace accidents. Only when someone close to you has been killed or seriously injured do we come to understand this tragedy.

Barry Holt, IIRSM Director of Policy & Research

This week our guest blogger is CQI CEO Simon Feary.

08 June 2012

As is the case with CQI’s members, I am sure members of IIRSM will have noticed the growing interdependencies and grouping of risk, safety and quality management, as systems within workplaces become more integrated. This is particularly true of the nuclear industry where quality management, health safety and risk management are front and centre and work together directly.

New research commissioned by the CQI on quality skills in the nuclear sector however has shown that by 2015, there will be a critical shortage of skilled quality professionals in the nuclear industry, unless urgent measures are put in place now.

The CQI’s research estimates that 1,200 –1,700 quality professionals will be required by 2021, however the trigger points for skills shortages will come much sooner. The convergence of the new build and decommissioning programmes mean that the potential to transfer quality employees across from old sites to new ones will be limited and that the age profile of quality professionals in the sector is higher than the average for the nuclear sector. Both factors will contribute to a peak shortage in just three years’ time, threatening the plans for simultaneous decommissioning and new build projects.

As the average training period for a quality professional is two years, we are urging the industry’s skills and regulatory bodies, and employers, to take urgent action to ensure that appropriate training programmes are put in place now. The CQI is also calling for better monitoring and separate categorisation of quality professionals in the sector by the skills bodies.

You can download the CQI’s full report www.thecqi.org/nuclear-research

Simon Feary, CQI CEO

22 May 2012

I once more find myself becoming increasingly concerned over the failure of the Government to be able to distinguish between real health and safety legislation and seemingly unconnected examples of minor regulation and red tape.The recent comments by the Minister* come to mind in which he linked cutting health and safety regulations by half in order to ensure that British jobs do not disappear abroad!While I applaud the Government’s commitment to the abolition of unnecessary red tape, am I alone in wishing for a clear differentiation between what is actually health and safety legislation and what is just red tape and spin? Or is it just me; did I fall asleep in in that part of economics that demonstrated a clear link between the frequency of testing electrical apparatus and the loss of jobs to China?

To label all under the same umbrella adds to the ‘elf and safety myths that the Government professes it is trying to abolish.So, I would like to call upon the Government to abandon the unnecessary spin, abolish the unnecessary red tape and publically support the application and principles behind the Health and Safety at Work Act which has done much to save the lives and livelihood of many thousands over the past 40 years.After all, surely our main concern should not be the unlikelihood of exporting jobs abroad, but the certainty of saving lives at home?

Brian Nimick, IIRSM Chief Executive

*Chris Grayling MP
View the news story here and subsequent IIRSM press release here.
You can also join the debate on our LinkedIn group discussion