HSE not on the PR slide for once

The new Electric Works office complex in Sheffield has a three-storey 26-metre corkscrew slide in its atrium, see here, because it's intended to attract the web designers and nu-media firms whose abundant creativity needs decorative expression through pinball machines and children's playground furniture in their workspace.

One of the project's landlords was discussing it on BBC radio today and eventually drew the inevitable question from the presenter: "What did health and safety have to say?"


His answer was enough to bring tears to the HSE's PR team's eyes:

"The health and safety in Sheffield couldn't have been more constructive and helpful in working with us to make this happen."

You'll never see that in the Daily Mail.

Louis

Health news from Brum

I'm at the Health and Wellbeing at Work conference and exhibition in Birmingham.

Yesterday I learned:

• The government's planned new electronic fitnote to replace the MED3 sicknote isn't likely to make its debut until next year. They've got the note pretty well finalised (it's been trialled in various forms for three years) but need to sort out the systems to make it available to GPs on screen - the NHS doesn't have the easiest relationship with IT historically. DWP's chief medical adviser Bill Gunnyeon says it will be heralded by a lot of publicity to let employers know how to interpret the advice it will carry on what sick employees can do at work.


• Sitting bolt upright in your chair with your chest thrust out (like a parade fround sergeant major) is almost as bad for you as slumping forward. This sort of "thoracic upright sitting" - more common among women than men apparently - puts strain on deep muscles that are only meant for load bearing.


• The vitamin Thiamine has been identified as a trigger of occupational asthma, when applied to breakfast cereals (literally applied, they spray it onto cereals to put back in a little of the nutritional value that is stripped out from the grain in the manufacturing process.

Louis

All quiet on the development front

I'm signed up to the government's health and safety news alerts for all the UK's regions. That means that I get a lot of variations on the same theme when the HSE launches anything across the country. At the moment they are just starting a new construction campaign, so i have had at least 15 emails over the weekend headed along the following lines:
HSE asks: Are you developing property in Cheshire?
HSE asks: Are you developing property in Hertfordshire?
HSE asks: Are you developing property in Staffordshire?

Given the state of the industry (from my office window I can see two major sites which have been cleared and then mothballed by Hammerson), I'm imagining a chorus of "No!" coming back from the shires.

Louis

“Air of the sinister”

As the debate goes on about the necessity for legally defined health and safety duties for directors, the Mirror newspaper, reporting on the inquest into the death of Mark Wright in an explosion at a Flintshire metal scrapyard in 2005, concluded last week that: “This tragedy again shows that legally binding health and safety duties should be imposed on company directors — so someone faces the music when rules are broken.”

Wright suffered 90% burns after he was told to put more than 3000 small air-freshener aerosols, containing 35 litres of highly combustible propellant, into a crusher at Deeside Metals in Saltney, Flintshire. The jury at the inquest into his death heard about a catalogue of failures leading up to the incident: Wright wasn’t properly trained, he had no protective clothing, the cans were not labelled as hazardous, risk assessments were ignored, the waste drums and sealed containers were accepted at the yard on the basis of unsubstantiated verbal assurances from the haulier, only superficial tests were carried out on the canisters to see what they contained.

The waste transfer note, signed by both the driver collecting the waste and the yard manager, didn’t mention the aerosols; Cheshire coroner Nicholas Rheinberg said there was an “air of the sinister” around this omission.

The jury returned a narrative verdict; a verdict of unlawful killing requires the jury to identify, beyond all reasonable doubt, an individual they hold responsible, and the decision must be unanimous.

According to the Mirror, the Crown Prosecution Service has indicated it cannot bring manslaughter charges because of conflicting evidence from the driver and company manager. But reaction to the case seems to provide anecdotal evidence of a the media’s — and public’s — desire to see named individuals, and not just corporate entities, held to account in cases of serious injuries or deaths at work.

As the Mirror puts it, “there are several people whose actions contributed to Mark's death that day — yet none is likely to pay for this tragedy.”

The public desire to “make someone pay” isn’t new, but high-profile cases such as these lend weight to calls for legal directors’ duties, especially since the Corporate Manslaughter Act fell far short of what many people wanted to see in terms of sanctions against individuals.

Jocelyn

Manslaughter knock-ons

I was at a British Safety Council conference on executive leadership in health and safety yesterday and in asession on the Corporate Manslaughter Act, barrister Oliver Campbell was considering the possible effects of the legislation.

One thing he suggested was that the possibility of high fines (and the guidance for judges on these has yet to be issued but in the last draft suggested a normal starting point of 5% of corporate turnover, which would mean tens of millions for larger corporations) will mean that the defendants are more likely to contest the charges than they have with health and safety cases previously.

Campbell argued this might mean that insurers, who have covered companies' expenses for legal action before may start to exclude thembecause the proceedings will be long and expensive.

We've focused before on the possible fines and got an early indication of how scary and disruptive the first investigations have been for the companies involved (beyond the trauma and disruption any faltality on site inevitably causes).

The insurance point is just another example of the Act's potential impact.

Louis

Early closing is safe closing

Here's one I took on Tuesday in Hastings town centre (which had had got off very lightly with only four inches of snow and was easily navigable).

Looks like another instance of the name of H&S being taken in vain, unless anyone can explain how customers' safety (let alone health) could be maintained by bank staff going home early.

"Unavoidable" is a nice touch.

Louis

More junk Mail

Following on from the previous entry, yesterday's Daily Mail front page was headlined FROZEN OUT BY 'ELF AND SAFETY

I'm not going to go into the few rights and many wrongs of their coverage of the schools closures, though there's some appropriate responses here.

I'm just going to use it as an excuse to give a plug to the Dailymail-o-matic random headline generator which is a boon to anyone who feels the need of more news on how everything is wrong than that paper can produce in a day.

A couple of clicks on the refresh button gave me:
ARE CHAVS MAKING BRITAIN'S SWANS OBESE?
WILL HEALTH & SAFETY TURN TAXPAYERS' MONEY GAY?
WILL FILTH ON TELEVISION GIVE YOUR HOUSE CANCER?

Louis

Balls to the conkers merchants

All credit to education secretary Ed Balls who was just on BBC Radio 4's World at One programme and said "The idea that schools are not opening [in the snowy weather] because of health and safety legislation is nonsense".

Louis