The tsas Times Issue

02 September

2011

News & Updates from tsas

Hello and welcome to the second edition of The tsas Times.

As August finishes, and together with it a less than spectacular British summer, I trust that you have all had a very good holiday season—free from injuries to you and your families.

August is traditionally a quiet time for British businesses as people take the opportunity for a break and to recharge their batteries. For myself the last month has been very busy working with existing clients and even more busy working to develop partnerships with new clients. If you are a new contact for me this month then thanks to you for extending the opportunity to work together.

One new organization that I a working with is Skills Bridge in New-castle. They are an organization focused on linking together volun-tary organisations with experts in the private sector. Through Skills Bridge I will be carrying out a Business Safety Survey for the New-castle United Foundation organization—helping them to improve the health and safety arrangements for their work in the communi-ty activities. Very much looking forwards to it.

tsas Times this month looks at two of the key safety management tools—Risk Assessment and Safety Surveys . Risk Assessment is the method that businesses use to identify hazards and risks in their work practices whilst periodic surveys by independent assessors—internal or external verify that safeguards are followed and work.

I hope you find the newsletter informative and useful, and thank you for all the helpful comments from last month edition.

In this edition.

Page 1

HSE propose changes to RIDDOR proto-cols

Why do I need Risk Assess-ments?

Page 2

Independent Expert Safety Surveys

Simple Training

In Court,

In The News

Why do I need Risk Assessments? Probably the most common phrase associated with Health and Safety management is Risk Assessment. The phrase has come to be perceived as a tedious and longwinded part of ‘Elf and Safety’ that gets in the way of people doing what they want to do. In reality Risk Assessment is the key to recognising the hazards associated with work activities and eval-uating the level of risk resulting. Workplace hazards are things that can cause harm to individuals—workers and non workers together. Risk is a measure of the probability that the hazard will cause harm together with the potential consequence—the worst reasona-bly foreseeable injury—that could result when the hazard results in injury. There are many many different formulae for calculating risk dependent on the nature of the busi-

ness and risk assessment systems employed. Ultimately all risk assess-ments seek to quantify risk between negligible, acceptable and unac-ceptable—businesses should seek to reduce risk to the lowest level rea-sonably practicable by implementing control strategies. By following this approach companies will reduce accidents and damage incidents.

All companies are legally required to carry out risk assessments & if they employ 5 persons or more all the significant findings of the risk assess-ments must be recorded. The HSE provide a 5 step guide for doing this.

The Latest

News From The

HSE

Employers will no longer have to report over-three day injuries to the authorities from next year, following the HSE’s decision to recommend an extension to the reporting threshold to ministers.

The absence period that triggers an accident report to the HSE or local authority under the Re-porting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regula-tions (RIDDOR) will rise from three to seven days.

The HSE board agreed to recom-mend the change at its 17 Aug meeting, accepting the results of a public consultation which found a 2/3 majority in favour of putting back the absence threshold.

The extension was first recom-mended by Lord Young is his re-port “Common Sense, Common Safety”, published last October, and the HSE board agreed to the public consultation in December.

The exercise, which ran from Janu-ary to April, prompted 776 re-sponses, 67% of them in favour of the proposed change according to the HSE

A paper prepared by HSE officials recommending the change to the board noted that respondents in favour of the extension believed it would be beneficial to align the time before an accident needed

reporting with the time off before

an employee must go to their GP for a MED3 fitnote.

thinksafe, worksafe, besafe

The tsas Simple Training Services—NEW On Line Train-

ing Facility Many businesses find it difficult to release employees and staff to attend essential safety courses. It

may be awkward to release large groups of workers at the same time or a company simply may not

have sufficient people to warrant holding a full course. In order to help our clients tsas have joined

forces with the well established on line training provider iHasco to allow tsas clients to take ad-

vantage of the many available titles at a very competitive price.

The subjects currently available are:-

Manual Handling

VDU safety and risk assessment

Fire Safety Awareness

Fire Warden Awareness

Slips and Trips (coming soon)

Independent expert safety surveys.

All businesses have different safety arrangements to suit their business and their operating styles. These arrangements provide day to day con-trols over the hazards arising from the work activities of the business and include such things as safe work practices, employee training, equipment inspections, supervision, guarding and personal protective equipment.

Understanding how effective these arrangements are is key to under-standing how safe the business is with respect to managing risks. Safety surveys are a means to checking that the current arrangements are ap-propriate and are being followed. Safety surveys or audits can be carried out in house by the company if a suitably independent agent is available or can be carried out by an independent expert.

tsas offers two levels of safety survey for your business. The Business Safety Review is for companies who feel that their arrange-ments are satisfactory and are looking for expert reassurances and piece of mind.

The Business Safety Survey is for businesses looking for help and advice to improve their arrangements. Two recent clients said of the Business Safety Survey:-

Owen Watters of Mainteam ‘Martin was able to identify aspects of our arrangements that we were missing and easily improved’

Chris Moody of Advanced Handling ‘Thorough, helpful with easy to un-derstand reports’

If your business would benefit from an Independent Safety Survey find out more on the tsas website http://www.ts-as.com

In the News

Scaffold collapse at school in Shropshire led to 5 workers be-ing taken to hospital.

The academy was being refurbished during the school holidays when the collapse occurred.

Four ambulances and the local air ambu-lance were involved in getting the injured to hospital .

Many jobs need-scaffolding—make sure that yours is done expertly

Read more ……...

In Court Lincolnshire timber company fined after a worker suffers hand injury using a circular saw. A 20-yr-old had part of his left thumb sev-ered while using a circular saw. The employer was fined £6,700 with costs of £4,117. The employee was using a table mount-ed circular saw when his hand was caught in the blade. It was standard practice to remove the guard as the height adjust-ment mechanism on the saw was broken. Read more:-

Contact Details:- Martin Taylor, 2 Bilsdale Road, Stockton On Tees, County Durham TS19 0RY

Tel: +44(0)1642 883973 Mob: 0750 584 3955 email: martintaylorhs@gmail.com web: http://www.ts-as.com

Contact Martin Taylor to learn more and to

book a course for your team.