health and safety: the return of “common sense”?

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Martin Malone

On the one hand, the Health and Safety Executive is becoming increasingly sensitive to suggestions that the way in which it enforces health and safety rules is excessively pernickety and can lead to red tape stifling initiative and supplanting common sense. It is currently conducting a high level campaign to bring proportionality into centre stage. Two recent examples are the public spat between the HSE and the tennis authorities and a recent HSE consultation on “proposals for replacement arrangements for adventure activities”. Continue reading →

reporting of accidents etc. at work and elsewhere

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Martin Malone

In June 2010 the Prime Minister appointed Lord Young of Graffham to review health and safety laws and the growth of the compensation culture. Lord Young’s report “Common Sense Common Safety”, was published in October. One of the recommendations was that the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations should be amended to extend from three to seven days the period before an injury or accident at work must be reported.

The report was roundly criticised on the basis that it played to tabloid headlines rather than the real experiences of the vast majority of people involved in accidents, mainly road traffic accidents which, of course, are not predicted by anyone involved in them (other than a small minority who abuse the process).

In late January the Health and Safety Executive issued a formal consultation document which set out this recommendation as a formal proposal and invited comments by 29 April.

Lord Young has now also come in for criticism from those who are concerned with reporting accidents.

Towards the end of the consultation period an interesting response came from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. RoSPA suggests that the proposal would be counter-productive. RoSPA takes the view that the number of reportable incidents would reduce so dramatically that employers would forget how to do the reporting and probably even forget that they are under an obligation to do so.

RoSPA recommends instead that the best way of reducing the red tape burden on employers would be to restrict the duty to notify the HSE to cover only “fatal and major injuries, cases of work-related ill health on the ‘notifiable’ list and incidents on the list of ‘dangerous occurrences’”.

RoSPA suggests that rather than be under a duty to report to HSE less major incidents employers should be required to investigate and keep internal records of all injuries requiring A&E attendance or medical intervention, including injury from work-related road crashes. It says “Record-keeping would need to be proportionate and not unduly burdensome but records would need to be made available to enforcing authorities if required”

We will have to wait and see what the official response is going to be. However it seems pretty certain that in one way or another the RIDDOR regulations will be amended in the foreseeable future in a way which reduces employers’ reporting obligations.

sacked for stopping shoplifter

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Martin Malone

[picappgallerysingle id="4773122" align="left"]This article in the US Columbus Dispatch reminded me of many a lively day when I managed the Virgin Megastore in York in the mid 80s. Walmart employee Heather Ravenstein has been sacked after challenging a man who walked out of the store with a $600 computer without paying for it. Although she was thanked at the time, she was called in the following day and given her cards because she violated company policy about how to treat people in stores.

[picappgallerysingle id="289790" align="left"]When I was working for Virgin in York (and this ages me!) our main sales were 33rpm albums which were shrink-wrapped with a big machine on the top floor. In those days there were not the scanner checks which you find at store entrances so it was down to us to spot them. I remember two occasions (both on Saturdays) when we lost the entire Who collection and another when we lost half the Reggae selection (approximately 50 albums). The instruction in those days was to pursue the felon and do what you could to retrieve both him/her and the albums. This often led to chases through the city centre and I remember one occasion when the woman who took the albums ran to the Lendal Bridge, threw all the albums into the river and then jumped in herself!

In our current health and safety aware society this type of escapade is clearly no longer acceptable but I do have sympathy for Ms Ravenstein who was doing what she (reasonably) thought was the right thing. It is essential for employers to provide guidance for employees about how to deal with the situations they may encounter in the course of their duties. This is why a staff handbook is essential. As part of our subscription package we provide a customised staff handbook which is tailored to suit your specific business and corresponding requirements. If you are a subscriber, you have probably already seen the benefit of this in practice. If not, please call 08000 320 974 and we will let you know how you can deal with this type of situation (and many others).