It’s a pain in the bum
The truth is yes, complying with health and safety in the work place, and spending hard earned profits on safety supplies is a pain in the bum, but in reality, it really is in your best interest to comply, and make sure that your customers and employees are as safe as possible at all times.
Let’s look at some of last years UK work place accident & injury statistics for 2008/2009.
1.2 million People who worked during the last year were suffering from an illness (long standing as well as new cases) they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work. 551 000 of these were new cases.
180 workers were killed at work, a rate of 0.6 per 100 000 workers
131 895 other injuries to employees were reported under RIDDOR, a rate of 502.2 per 100 000 employees.
246 000 reportable injuries occurred, according to the Labour supply chain management components Force Survey, a rate of 870 per 100 000 workers.
29.3 million days were lost overall (1.24 days per worker), 24.6 million due to work-related ill health and 4.7 million due to workplace injury.
OK, so we can see that a large number of people have been sick at work, been injured at work or even died at work, and yes it is a good enough reason to have all these safety procedures and products in the workplace, but some employees don’t even care about health and safety, and don’t even want to comply, so why should you insist that everything is done by the book?
One simple answer
FINES!!
Yes that’s right fines! That is why it is so important for you to spend all this cash on health and safety in your business. In the long run it actually works out cheaper for you to spend on health and safety. If you don’t it’s only a matter of time before you will end up paying the price, and a big price at that.
You see when it comes to health and safety accidents, death and injury in the work place financially, there is only one loser, and that financial loser is the company that the employee was working for at the time of the accident, injury or death (that is if the company was not doing everything that they possibly could to prevent the accident from happening in the first place, and that they had hard evidence to prove it).
So who can fine forklift advantages the company?
The Employee or Customer – That’s right; the employee or customer can take you to court and take a big chunk from your bank account. These days it is so easy for an employee or customer to take an employer/company to court for even for the smallest accident. These days there are plenty of law companies out there that will have employee/customers backs on a no win no fee basis, and these law firms will obviously be doing everything that they can to win the case!
The HSE – The HSE can fine you quicker than the blink of an eye for not complying. From looking at the fine stats, a company could be fined between A�5000-A�200,000! That is a great deal of money to lose for the sake of not buying a bit of safety equipment and PPE.
So what are some of the simple steps that you should take in the work place to help make sure that you don’t get fined?
Depending on your industry you might need some of the following safety supplies: Health & safety law posters, accident books, first aid kits, safety signs such as warning signs, fire exit signs, fire action signs, prohibition signs, hygiene signs, first aid signs and more.
You might also need to provide work wear such as yellow safety jackets, safety boots, work trousers and fleeces, or you might need to restrict or shut off dangerous areas. An ideal solution for shutting off areas without affecting other peoples safety are wall mounted retractable belt barriers or queue barriers.
Another good thing is to always make sure you have CCTV covering your premises so you can go back and check the CCTV cameras to see how the accident happened. Nowadays directors and managers are installing IP CCTV so they can log into their IP CCTV cameras on their laptops or PC’s anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection, and they can actually see what is going on when they are not in the building. This also takes out the hassle of needing CCTV monitors. Also there is no need to use standard video recorders. Most companies now use digital video recorders with internet access.
Before winter time comes it is important to stack up on rock salt. Most rock salt comes in 25kg white rock salt bags or 25kg brown rock salt bags. These are ideal to help prevent painful slips and falls in and around the work place.
Also chemical spill kits and oil spill kits are a great thing to have in the work place as spills can be cleaned up quickly and easily.
Safety books and posters & fire safety equipment are also essential items to have in the work place.
If you need to purchase any safety equipment, consider using Safety Savers.
