It is against the law to smoke in these premises
Figure 4.16 Smoke-free – no smoking sign
Figure 4.17 Fragile roof signs
training or refresher courses that are planned by the organisation, and relate to managing risk through policy, legislative or organisational requirements that are common to all employees.
Before any employee can work safely, they must be shown safe procedures for completing their tasks. The purpose of safety training should be to improve the safety awareness of employees and show them how to perform their jobs while employing acceptable, safe behaviour.
See Chapter 3 for more detail on health and safety training.
Information
Organisations need to ensure that they have effective arrangements for identifying and receiving relevant health and safety information from outside the organisation including:
X
u ensuring that pertinent health and safety information is communicated to all people in the organisation who need it;
X
u ensuring that relevant information is communicated to people outside the organisation who require it;
X
u encouraging feedback and suggestions from employees on health and safety matters.
Anyone who is affected by what is happening in the workplace will need to be given safety information. This does not only apply to staff. It can also apply to visitors, members of the public and contractors.
Information to be provided for people in a workplace includes:
X
u who is at risk and why;
X
u how to carry out specific tasks safely;
X
u correct operation of equipment;
X
u emergency action;
X
u accident and hazard reporting procedures;
X
u the safety responsibilities of individual people.
Information can be provided in a variety of ways. These include safety signs, posters, newsletters, memos, emails, personal briefings, meetings, toolbox talks, formal training, written safe systems of work and written health and safety arrangements.
Welfare
Welfare facilities include general workplace ventilation, lighting and heating and the provision of drinking water, sanitation and washing facilities. There is also a requirement to provide eating and rest rooms. Risk control may be enhanced by the provision of eye washing and shower facilities for use after certain accidents (Figure 4.18).
Good housekeeping is a very cheap and effective means of controlling risks. It involves keeping the workplace clean and tidy at all times and maintaining good storage systems for hazardous substances and other potentially dangerous items. The risks most likely it is possible to consider short bouts of intensive work
with rest periods when employees are engaged in heavy labour, such as manual digging when machines are not permitted due to the confines of the space or buried services.
Isolation/segregation
Controlling risks by isolating them or segregating people and the hazard is an effective control measure and is used in many instances; for example separating vehicles and pedestrians on factory sites, providing separate walkways for the public on road repairs, providing warm rooms on sites or noise refuges in noisy processes.
The principle of isolation is usually followed with the storage of highly flammable liquids or gases which are put into open, air-ventilated compounds away from other hazards such as sources of ignition, or away from people who may be at risk from fire or explosion.
Safe systems of work
Operating procedures or safe systems of work are probably the most common form of control measure used in industry today and may be the most economical and, in some cases, the only practical way of managing a particular risk. They should allow for methodical execution of tasks. The development of safe operating procedures should address the hazards that have been identified in the risk assessment. The system of work describes the safe method of performing the job or activity. A safe system of work is a requirement of the Health and Safety at Work Act and is dealt with in detail later.
If the risks involved in the task are high or medium, the details of the system should be in writing and should be communicated to the employee formally in a training session. Details of systems for low-risk activities may be conveyed verbally. There should be records that the employee (or contractor) has been trained or instructed in the safe system of work and that they understand it and will abide by it.
Training
Training helps people acquire the skills, knowledge and attitudes to make them competent in the health and safety aspects of their work. There are generally two types of safety training:
X
u Specific safety training (or on-the-job training) which aims at tasks where training is needed due to the specific nature of such tasks. This is usually a job for supervisors, who, by virtue of their authority and close daily contact, are in a position to convert safety generalities to the everyday safe practice procedures that apply to individual tasks, machines, tools and processes;
X
u Planned training, such as general safety training, induction training, management training, skill
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system of work. The supervisor is an important source of information during the monitoring process.
Where the organisation is involved with shift work, it is essential that the risk controls are monitored on all shifts to ensure the uniformity of application.
The effectiveness and relevance of any training or instruction given should be monitored.
Periodically the risk control measures should be reviewed. Monitoring and other reports are crucial for the review to be useful. Reviews often take place at safety committee and/or at management meetings. A serious accident or incident should lead to an immediate review of the risk control measures in place.
(e) Personal protective equipment
Personal protective equipment (PPE) should only be used as a last resort. There are many reasons for this.
The most important limitations are that PPE:
X
u only protects the person wearing the equipment, not others nearby;
X
u relies on people wearing the equipment at all times;
X
u must be used properly;
X
u must be replaced when it no longer offers the correct level of protection. This last point is particularly relevant when respiratory protection is used.
The benefits of PPE are:
X
u it gives immediate protection to allow a job to continue while engineering controls are put in place;
X
u in an emergency it can be the only practicable way of effecting rescue or shutting down plant in hazardous atmospheres;
X
u it can be used to carry out work in confined spaces where alternatives are impracticable. But it should never be used to allow people to work in dangerous atmospheres, which are, for example, enriched with oxygen or potentially explosive.
See Chapter 13 for more details on PPE.
2. Other hierarchies of risk control
There are several other similar hierarchies of risk control, which have been used over many years. A typical example is as follows:
X
u elimination:
X
u substitution;
X
u changing work methods/patterns;
X
u reduced or limited time exposure;
X
u engineering controls (e.g. isolation, insulation and ventilation);
X
u good housekeeping;
X
u safe systems of work;
X
u training and information;
X
u personal protective equipment;
X u welfare;
X
u monitoring and supervision; and X
u review.
to be influenced by good housekeeping are fire and slips, trips and falls.
See Chapter 7 for more information on the work environment.
Monitoring and supervision
All risk control measures, whether they rely on engineered or human behavioural controls, must be monitored for their effectiveness, with supervision to ensure that they have been applied correctly. Competent people who have a sound knowledge of the equipment or process should undertake this monitoring. Checklists are useful to ensure that no significant factor is forgotten.
Any statutory inspection or insurance company reports should be checked to see whether any areas of concern were highlighted and if any recommendations were implemented. Details of any accidents, illnesses or other incidents will give an indication on the effectiveness of the risk control measures. Any emergency arrangements should be tested during the monitoring phase including first-aid provision.
It is crucial that the operator should be monitored to ascertain that all relevant procedures have been understood and followed. The operator may also be able to suggest improvements to the equipment or Figure 4.18 Emergency shower and eye wash station where there is a serious risk of chemical contamination
3. Prioritisation of risk control
The prioritisation of the implementation of risk control measures will depend on the risk rating (high, medium and low) but the timescale in which the measures are introduced will not always follow the ratings. It may be convenient to deal with a low-level risk at the same time as a high-level risk or before a medium-level risk.
It may also be that work on a high-risk control system is delayed due to a late delivery of an essential component – this should not halt the overall risk reduction work.
It is important to maintain a continuous programme of risk improvement rather than slavishly following a predetermined priority list.
Step 4 – Recording significant findings
It is very useful to keep a written record of the risk assessment even if there are less than five employees in the organisation. For an assessment to be ‘suitable and sufficient’, only the significant hazards and conclusions need be recorded. The record should also include details of the groups of people affected by the hazards and the existing control measures and their effectiveness. The conclusions should identify any new controls required and a review date. The HSE booklet
‘Five Steps to Risk Assessment’ provides a very useful guide and examples of the detail required for most risk assessments.
There are many possible layouts which can be used for the risk assessment record. Examples are given in Appendices 4.2 and 4.3 and Chapter 19. It should be noted that in Appendices 4.2 and 4.3, the initial qualitative risk level at the time of the risk assessment is given – the residual risk level when all the additional controls have been implemented will be ‘low’. This should mean that an annual review will be sufficient.
The written record provides excellent evidence to a health and safety inspector of compliance with the law. It is also useful evidence if the organisation should become involved in a civil action.
The record should be accessible to employees and a copy kept with the safety manual containing the safety policy and arrangements.
Step 5 – Monitoring and review
As mentioned earlier, the risk controls should be reviewed periodically. This is equally true for the risk assessment as a whole. Review and revision may be necessary when conditions change as a result of the introduction of new machinery, processes or hazards. There may be new information on hazardous substances or new legislation. There could also be changes in the workforce, for example the introduction of trainees. The risk assessment needs to be revised only if significant changes have taken place since the last assessment was done. An accident or incident or a series of minor ones provides a good reason for a Figure 4.20 Respiratory protection and disposable
overalls are needed when working in high levels of asbestos dust
Figure 4.19 Good dust control for a chasing operation.
A dust mask is still required for complete protection
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The following key elements should be covered by the risk assessment:
X
u details of the work activity, including any equipment or hazardous substances;
X
u details of any prohibited equipment or processes;
X
u details of health and safety training to be provided;
X
u details of supervision arrangements.
The extent of the risks identified in the risk assessment will determine whether employers should restrict the work of the people they employ. Except in special circumstances, young people should not be employed to do work which:
X
u is beyond their physical or psychological capacity;
X
u exposes them to substances chronically harmful to human health, for example toxic or carcinogenic substances, or effects likely to be passed on genetically or likely to harm the unborn child;
X
u exposes them to radiation;
X
u involves a risk of accidents which they are unlikely to recognise because of, for example, their lack of experience, training or insufficient attention to safety;
X
u involves a risk to their health from extreme heat, noise or vibration.
These restrictions will not apply in special
circumstances where young people over the minimum school leaving age are doing work necessary for their training, under proper supervision by a competent person, and providing the risks are reduced to the lowest level, so far as is reasonably practicable. Under no circumstances can children of compulsory school age do work involving these risks, whether they are employed or under training such as work experience.
Induction training is important for young workers and such training should include site rules, restricted areas, prohibited machines and processes, fire precautions, emergency procedures, welfare arrangements and details of any further training related to their particular job. At induction, they should be introduced to their mentor and given close supervision, particularly during the first few weeks of their employment.
If work-experience trainees are not at school on any days during the placement, then they should not work more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week (Working Time Directive) and no night work or overtime. They should also have a 20-minute rest within a 4.5-hour working period.
A guide is available to employers who organise site visits for young people. The guide ‘Guidance for employers: Getting involved in work-experience and work-related learning’ is available from LANTRA (www.
lantra.co.uk).