The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) will begin a nationwide work related vehicle safety inspection and information campaign on Monday (22 May). The campaign will last two weeks and will focus on four key sectors: Transport and Logistics; Wholesale and Retail; Waste and Recycling and Manufacturing.
The purpose of the campaign is to make sure that employers are aware of their legal responsibilities for managing vehicle risks, and to help them reduce the likelihood of accidents occurring.
Over the last 6 years, just under half (45%) of all workplace fatalities have involved vehicles. In the same period nearly one in five (18%) of all non-fatal accidents were vehicle related.
An analysis of HSA accident statistics indicates that the majority of these fatalities occurred during the manoeuvring, reversing or coupling and uncoupling of vehicles. Non-fatal injuries generally occurred during the manual handling of loads or as the result of falls from vehicles.Deirdre Sinnott, Senior Inspector with the HSA says that the risks can be reduced by focusing on four key areas.
“Firstly, employers should have a vehicle risk management policy that covers all vehicle related activities in the workplace. This includes not only vehicles operated by employees but also those visiting that need to be managed and controlled. It is also important that procedures are in place to eliminate and control known risks associated with: driving for work, loading and unloading, deliveries and collections, parking, reversing and manoeuvring. Then safety information, instruction and training should be provided for all employees and finally, a method to record and learn from all incidents or near misses and take corrective action where necessary.”There are free short on-line courses, aimed at helping employers to manage work related vehicle safety, on the HSA e-learning portal http://hsalearning.ie
Also, freely available guidance and resources can be found on the HSA website.
Health & Safety
Sun Protection for Outdoor Workers
Introduction
“This short guide is both for employers of outdoor workers and the employees themselves on sun protection. These include construction workers, farmers, agricultural and horticultural workers, fishermen, gardeners, postal workers, council workers, refuse collectors and couriers. The guide provides useful information on the topic of skin cancers which are much more common in outdoor workers than those who work indoors. It also outlines measures that employers should have in place to protect their employees.
Skin Cancer
Cancer is a disease of the body cells. The cells do not behave as normal and keep on growing to form a primary tumour. If a cancer is malignant, the cells can break away from the body part where they form and be carried by the bloodstream or lymph vessels elsewhere and form a secondary tumour.
Skin cancer is caused by abnormal growth of the cells nearest the skin, squamous, basal and melanocytes . Squamous and basal cells form non melanoma skin cancer while melanocytes cells which give the skin its pigment or colour form melanoma skin cancer. Basal cell cancers (BCC) are more strongly related to acute sun burn events in childhood and intermittent adult exposure while squamous cell cancer (SCC) is mostly a result of chronic long term occupational sun exposure.
Cases of Skin Cancer
Unfortunately the annual rates of both melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers are increasing steadily in Ireland. We are approaching nearly 1000 cases of melanoma and almost 10,000 cases of non-melanoma annually.
In 2012, there were 860 people diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer, 470 women and 390 men. Annually about 140 people die from this cancer, with more females 84 than males 56.
Non melanoma skin cancer is the most common cancer in Ireland. It is most common in those over 60. Men are twice as likely as women to have BCC and three times as likely to have SCC. It is believed that men are more exposed to the sun from working outdoors and playing sport, and from not using sunscreen or wearing protective clothing. In 2012, about 9,400 people were diagnosed with it, with 5190 men and 4,210 women. Annually the death rate is about 50, with more males 33 than females 17.
The main cause of skin cancer is ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun. Sun exposure is the best natural source of Vitamin D and is important for good general health. We can all enjoy the outdoors but we just need to think about how we protect our skin when outside. Outdoor workers are at higher risk than other workers.
Employer Protective Measures
There are a range of protective measures as follows:
- If possible, plan outdoor work in sunny weather to limit duration and intensity of employee exposure to direct sunlight (1100 to 1500 sun rays are most intense)
- Limit duration of exposure if possible when UV index is high (3 or above)
- Give information to employees about dangers of sun exposure
- Inform employees about the Sun Smart code
- Educate and encourage employees to self-check skin for signs of skin cancer
- Check UV index, if 3 or above greater risk www.cancer.ie/reduce-your-risk/sunsmart/uv-index
- Ensure breaks are taken out of direct sunlight
- Encourage employees to cover up, keep clothing on with sleeves down and collars up, wear clothing with high ultraviolet protection factor (UPF), 15 or more, wear hat
- Ensure employees do not strip off clothing when it is sunny
- Provide sun screen, SPF of at least 30 and UVA label on bottle
- Provide sun glasses
Sun Smart Code
- Seek some shade where possible
- Slip on some clothes
- Wear sunglasses
- Use sunscreen
- Know the UV index”
Useful Sites:
Irish Cancer Society at www.cancer.ie
Skinmama courtesy of the EU Health Program skinmama.eu/
Courtesy Of The Health & Safety Authority.
Fact or Fiction: Health & Safety Costs Money?
A common question we are asked is “How much is this going to cost?” Well, health and safety costs money doesn’t it? Installing safety devices, training, monitoring, checks and inspections, not to mention time spent on paperwork, it all adds up. So how can health and safety save you money?
Well yes, it is true to say that health and and safety management and measures cost money. But there is also a return on investment – the ROI, and of course, a cost to not having any health and safety measures in place.
Take this simple example, there is a cost of £50.00 to replace a guard on a piece of machinery. There is no other purpose for the guard except to stop the risk of entanglement or personal injury to an employee. £50.00 is the cost.
So why not save yourself money and not put the guard in place – there are 3 guiding principles in health and safety – the legal requirement, the economic requirement and the moral requirement. The question is always – “have you met your health and safety requirements?”. If you don’t put the guard in place and a person is injured then the person is off work for two weeks, you bear the costs involved of downtime, staff cover, equipment damage and investigation – not forgetting that you have to report this accident to the Health & Safety Authority. The total costs could be around £750.00. Now add in any possible payouts for fines and legal costs that may follow and the increase in insurance premiums.
Look at the £50.00 safety measure that could have prevented that accident, and automatically you have saved yourself €700.00.Penny wise and pound foolish! You are probably thinking that this makes sense but you might just see that £50 cost, and not really consider that you have just saved your business a whole lot of money and hassle.
This is just a simple example, but you can learn from other health and safety failings to appreciate the cost of failing to put in place good health and safety management.
With health and safety the return on investment is rarely immediate. There is a risk of much higher costs in the future, due to that health and safety failing.Health and safety measures might not just save you money against future costs. Health and safety measures might also save you money from costs that are already eating into your business profits.
For example, a business might identify a problem with manual handling within the workforce. Regular absences due to back issues, slips, trips and falls, and general accidents and ill health surrounding the movement of materials on site.
Adding up the costs of absences, loss of productivity, downtime, staff cover, staff turnover and recruitment costs, over a year period, is costing this fictional business in the region of £50,000 additional costs.
Once this has been identified, the business invests £10,000 in extra measures including new equipment, training, a campaign to raise awareness and better monitoring.
The results were that the company saved a staggering 50% of the costs they were experiencing due to poor manual handling practices.
| Cost: | Annual Saving: | Saving (5 Years): |
| -£10,000 | £25,000 | £115,000 |
The above might be a fictional example, but the potential cost savings are real.
When looking at the cost of health and safety, don’t just think about how much you will need to spend to put better health and safety practices and procedures in the place, but also the savings that you could make.