Closing the loop

Heath and safety audits are carried out by the thousand on a daily basis. Despite this, there were 71 fatal injuries to workers in the construction industry in 2004/5. A key health and safety issue within the m&e industry is working at height. Of the 71 fatalities in 2004/5, 28 of these were due to falls from height.

Electricity hazards are also of particular concern, with around 1000 electrical accidents at work being reported to the HSE each year, 30 of which are fatal.

In a bid to reduce the number of deaths and injuries resulting from falls and increase safety within the industry, the Work at Height Regulations were introduced last year.

Under these laws, an employer must do everything that is reasonably practical to prevent any employee from falling during work. Where possible, employers must avoid work at height and, where this is unavoidable, work equipment or other measures should be put into place to prevent falls. Where the risk of a fall cannot be eliminated, employers must use work equipment or other measures to minimise the distance and consequences of a potential fall.

Electrical safety

All electrically powered tools are covered by the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

All work – including work on electrical systems or with electrical equipment – must have been subjected to a risk assessment under the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

Under these Regulations, the onus is on the employer to make an assessment of each and every work activity, in order to identify any potential hazards that either employees – or others who may be affected by an employer’s operations – may encounter during their work.

Despite health and safety laws being in place, and being adhered to by responsible employers, fatal health and safety incidents, not to mention serious accidents, continue to occur.

What more can be done?

In my view, one way to reduce significantly the number of workplace accidents resulting from non-compliance would be to look at alternatives to traditional, paper-based reporting systems. These can sometimes be the source of long delays or, even worse, incidences of non compliance going unreported due to lost paperwork on site.

Delay and non compliance is a virtually unavoidable issue due to the use of paper-based workflow systems that increase the time it takes to circulate important information to decision makers on a project. People can be seriously hurt or even killed as a result.

This typical method of reporting means that it can be very difficult for health and safety officers, consultants and others responsible for carrying out the required health and safety checks to enforce the regulations set out by the HSE.

Employers should take a fresh look at health and safety and put compliance at the top of their agendas. Compliance should be seen as the holy grail of safe working practices; those with responsibility for health and safety in the workplace need to close the loop to ensure that businesses are not falling foul of the guidelines.

I believe this can be achieved by adopting the use of modern health and safety technology software in the workplace. Such technology enables employers to proactively control the hazards and dangers involved in the day to day risk management of industrial tasks and any non-compliance issues, both on and off site.

Then, the non-compliance loop is closed and health and safety risks are reduced.