Organisations have been encouraged for many years to employ workers with disabilities and to ensure that their premises provide suitable access for such people.
From a health and safety point of view, it is important that workers with a disability are covered by special risk assessments so that appropriate controls are in place to protect them. Workers with disabilities may be at greater risk from particular hazards depending on the nature and extent of their disability. For example, employees with a hearing problem will need to be warned when the fire alarm sounds or a fork-lift truck
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control measures form the core of the HSG65 ‘PLAN’
section of the management model.
In industry today, including the construction sector, safety is controlled through a combination of
engineered measures such as the provision of safety protection (e.g. guarding and warning systems), and operational measures in training, safe work practices, operating procedures and method statements, along with management supervision.
These measures (collectively) are commonly known in health and safety terms as control measures. Some of these more common measures will be explained in more detail later.
This section concerns the principles that should be adopted when deciding on suitable measures to eliminate or control both acute and chronic risks to the health and safety of people on construction operations.
The principles of control can be applied to both health risks and safety risks, although health risks have some distinctive features that require a special approach.
Chapters 8–18 deal with specific workplace hazards and controls, subject by subject. The principles of prevention now enshrined in the Management of Health and Safety at Work (MHSW) Regulations need to be used jointly with the hierarchy of control methods which give the preferred order of approach to risk control.
When risks have been analysed and assessed, decisions can be made about workplace precautions.
All final decisions about risk control methods must take into account the relevant legal requirements, which establish minimum levels of risk prevention or control. Some of the duties imposed by the HSW Act and the relevant statutory provisions are absolute and must be complied with. Many requirements are, however, qualified by the words so far as is reasonably practicable, or so far as is practicable.
These require an assessment of cost, along with information about relative costs, effectiveness and reliability of different control measures. Further guidance on the meaning of these three expressions is provided in Chapter 1.
X
u can all the equipment and substances be safely handled by one person?
X
u is violence from others a risk?
X
u would women and young persons be specially at risk?
X
u is the worker medically fit and suitable for working alone?
X
u are special training and supervision required?
X
u has the worker access to first-aid?
The risk assessment should help decide the right level of supervision.
The controls resulting from the risk assessment for lone workers and the safe systems of work are covered in 4.4.9.
4.2 General principles of prevention in relation to risk reduction measures
4.2.1 Introduction
The control of risks is essential to secure and maintain a healthy and safe construction site or workplace which complies with the relevant legal requirements. Hazard identification and risk assessment are covered earlier in this chapter and these together with appropriate risk Figure 4.21 A lone worker – special arrangements required. Sand or shot blasting inside a tank with an air-fed helmet and vest
Figure 4.22 When controls break down
environment. Health and safety policies should be prepared and applied by reference to these principles.
8. Giving collective protective measures priority over individual protective measures
This means giving priority to control measures which make the workplace safe for everyone working there so giving the greatest benefit, for example removing hazardous dust by exhaust ventilation rather than providing a filtering respirator to an individual worker.
This is sometimes known as a ‘Safe Place’ approach to controlling risks.
9. Giving appropriate instruction to employees This involves making sure that employees are fully aware of company policy, safety procedures, good practice, official guidance, any test results and legal requirements. This is sometimes known as a ‘Safe Person’ approach to controlling risks where the focus is on individuals. A properly set-up health and safety management system should cover and balance both a Safe Place and Safe Person approach.
4.3 Sources of health and safety information
When anybody, whether a health and safety professional, a manager or an employee, is confronted with a health and safety problem, they will need to consult various items of published information to ascertain the scale of the problem and its possible remedies. The sources of this information may be internal to the organisation and/or external to it.
4.3.1 Internal sources which should be available within the organisation include
X
u accident and ill-health records and investigation reports;
X
u absentee records;
X
u inspection and audit reports undertaken by the organisation and by external organisations such as the HSE;
X
u maintenance, risk assessment (including COSHH) and training records;
X
u documents which provide information to workers;
X
u any equipment examination or test reports.
4.3.2 External sources, which are available outside the organisation, are numerous and include
X
u health and safety legislation;
4.2.2 General principles of prevention
The MHSW Regulations Schedule 1 specifies the general principles of prevention which are set out in Article 6(2) of the European Council Directive 89/391/
EEC. For the first time the principles have been enshrined directly in Regulations which state, at Regulation 4, that ‘Where an employer implements any preventative measures he shall do so on the basis of the principles specified in Schedule 1’. These principles are:
1. Avoiding risks
This means, for example, trying to stop doing the task or using different processes or doing the work in a different, safer way.
2. Evaluating the risks which cannot be avoided This requires a risk assessment to be carried out.
3. Combating the risks at source
This means that risks, such as a dusty work atmosphere, are controlled by removing the cause of the dust rather than providing special protection;
or that slippery floors are treated or replaced rather than putting up a sign.
4. Adapting the work to the individual
This involves the design of the workplace, the choice of work equipment and the choice of working and production methods, with a view, in particular, to alleviating monotonous work and work at a predetermined work rate and to reducing their effect on health.
This will involve consulting those who will be affected when workplaces, methods of work and safety procedures are designed. The control individuals have over their work should be increased, and time spent working at predetermined speeds and in monotonous work should be reduced where it is reasonable to do so.
5. Adapting to technical progress
It is important to take advantage of technological and technical progress, which often gives
designers and employers the chance to improve both safety and working methods. With the Internet and other international information sources available, very wide knowledge, going beyond what is happening in the UK or Europe, will be expected by the enforcing authorities and the courts.
6. Replacing the dangerous by the non-dangerous or the less dangerous
This involves substituting, for example, equipment or substances with non-hazardous or less hazardous substances.
7. Developing a coherent overall prevention policy This covers technology, organisation of work, working conditions, social relationships and the influence of factors relating to the working
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The particular importance of safe systems of work stems from the recognition that most accidents are caused by a combination of factors (plant, substances, lack of training and/or supervision, etc.).
Hence prevention must be based on an integral
approach and not one which only deals with each factor in isolation. The adoption of a safe system of work provides this integral approach because an effective safe system:
X
u is based on looking at the job as a whole;
X
u starts from an analysis of all foreseeable hazards, for example physical, chemical, health;
X
u brings together all the necessary precautions, including design, physical precautions, training, monitoring, procedures and PPE.
It follows from this that the use of safe systems of work is in no way a replacement for other precautions, such as good equipment design, safe construction and the use of physical safeguards. However, there are many situations where these will not give adequate protection in themselves, and then a carefully thought-out and properly implemented safe system of work is especially important. The best example is maintenance and repair work, which will often involve, as a first-stage, dismantling the guard or breaking through the containment, which exists for the protection of the ordinary process operator. In some of these operations, a permit-to-work procedure will be the most appropriate type of safe system of work.
The operations covered may be simple or complex, routine or unusual.
Whether the system is verbal or written, and whether the operation it covers is simple or complex, routine or unusual, the essential features are forethought and planning – to ensure that all foreseeable hazards are identified and controlled. In particular, this will involve scrutiny of:
X
u the sequence of operations to be carried out;
X
u the equipment, plant, machinery and tools involved;
X
u chemicals and other substances to which people might be exposed in the course of the work;
X
u the people doing the work – their skill and experience;
X
u foreseeable hazards (health, safety, environment), whether to the people doing the work or to others who might be affected by it;
X
u practical precautions which, when adopted, will eliminate or minimise these hazards (Figure 4.24);
X
u the training needs of those who will manage and operate under the procedure;
X
u monitoring systems to ensure that the defined precautions are implemented effectively.
X
u HSE publications, such as Approved Codes of Practice, guidance documents, leaflets, journals, books and their website;
X
u International (e.g. International Labour Organisation, ILO), European and British Standards;
X
u health and safety magazines and journals;
X
u information published by trade associations, employer organisations and trade unions;
X
u specialist technical and legal publications;
X
u information and data from manufacturers and suppliers;
X
u the internet and encyclopedias.
Figure 4.23 Checking the label for health risks See Chapter 19 for more information and website addresses. Many of these sources of information will be referred to throughout this book.