Legislative Updates

The Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment Regulations 2007 replace several existing pieces of legislation and a provide a consolidated set of regulations covering the safe movement of all classes of dangerous goods by road and rail.

Here we look at these new regulations in more detail.

What’s New on the Web...

FREE IOSH Working Safely e-Learning now available

RRC Training have been running IOSH programmes for many years with great success. But our experts have now created an IOSH Working Safely e-learning programme that is completely free of charge.

This free course includes access to online course materials, multiple-choice review questions and a mock assessment. On completion, you will be given the opportunity to attempt the real IOSH assessment for just £50 and potentially receive a nationally-recognised IOSH certificate.

From January 2008, we'll also be offering IOSH Managing Safely and Managing Environmental Responsibilities by e-learning.

Click here to register for our IOSH Working Safely e-learning course for free. Or click here for details of our IOSH Managing Safely or Managing Environmental Responsibilities courses.

Latest Podcast now Available

In the November podcast we look at the business case for giving attention to health and safety. Ultimately good health and safety makes good business sense. John Caruthers may take some convincing though... Download the full podcast to hear this for yourself at: www.rrc.co.uk/Podcasts.aspx.

Podcast competition!

As most of our readers are well aware, in February 2007 RRC Training launched a monthly series of podcasts on a range of topical health and safety issues.

So far we have received great feedback from our listeners who often suggest topics they are interested in. That’s why we want you to tell us what you would like our podcasts to be about. You can now submit your views on the subject of future episodes to competition@rrc.co.uk. The winner will take part in the recording of their chosen podcast.

Moving up the Ladder

Many of you will already be familiar with Dr David Towlson who, until last month, was our Lead Tutor. We are delighted to announce that David has recently accepted the position of Director of Training for RRC and will be playing a fundamental role in managing the business into the future.

Here, David gives us a brief insight into his career so far and lets us in on his plans for the future.

Global Health and Safety - Possibility or pipedream?

David Towlson looks at whether it’s possible for a global organisation to have a unified health and safety culture and to achieve harmonisation, despite global differences in legislation, cultures and language

Can a global organisation have a unified health and safety culture? The simple answer to this would probably be no. However, if the question was rephrased as ‘can a global organisation have a unified health and safety approach’, the answer would be, yes, most definitely, given time. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a positive health and safety culture can be developed by giving attention to the four “C”s: competence, control, co-operation and communication.

New Services Available from RRC

NEBOSH Revision Packages

Everyone feels nervous about taking exams. Here at RRC, we understand there is no “one right way” to revise and that’s why we commissioned our experts to design a varied range of revision tools so our students can choose techniques most suitable for them.

Click here for further information on our NEBOSH Certificate Revision Packages.

Click here for further information on our NEBOSH Diploma Revision Packages.

HOW MUCH?
The Business Case for Health and Safety

By Malcolm Rimmer, PostGrad Dip Health & Safety, BA(Hons), Dip Acoustics, AMIOA

Q. How much does an accident cost?
A. I don't know, probably a lot.

Perhaps more than a lot. Perhaps the business itself. UK and European statistics show that 70% of businesses fail within three years of a major fire, despite insurance. However, the cost of prevention was very often less than £1,000 (2005 prices). Nor were these preventative measures generally dominated by high technology. They comprise such simple things as fire and smoke detectors, fire extinguishers or a metal box to store highly flammable liquids.

The previous figures relate only to total business failures following a major fire. They do not reveal the extent of the damage done to businesses after a major fire - damage from which the businesses may never fully recover. Nor do they reveal the number of businesses broken by a significant rather than major fire.

News In Brief

• Information from the Ministry of Defence reveals that convoys of nuclear material in Britain have experienced a total of 67 safety incidents over the past seven years. Fifty of these were “engineering incidents” involving mechanical faults and equipment failure. The remainder were “operational incidents” in which protests caused delays and diversions. None of the incidents were classed as serious security failures.

• Leisure centres in Bournemouth no longer hand out armbands or rubber rings for swimmers as people could catch germs when blowing them up. Stringent guidelines from the Institute of Sport and Recreation Management would require a new cleansing programme, daily inspection for punctures, provision of equipment of the right size and training for staff on how to deal with inflatable-related issues. People are still permitted to bring their own inflatables.

• Paramedics in Ashton-in-Makerfield near Wigan were pelted with stones by three youths as they tried to save the life of an elderly man who had suffered a heart attack while playing bowls. They were forced to withdraw for their own safety. The path of the ambulance was also blocked by the youths, delaying the man’s arrival at a hospital by at least five minutes, where he later died.

• An NHS radiographer who suffered injuries to her shoulder, neck and knees when she slipped in a pool of urine left on a hospital floor is claiming £150,000 in compensation from the Bristol Healthcare Trust. She had to take early retirement following the accident in August 2004 at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. The Trust has admitted liability.

• A five-year-old girl drowned in a crowded Doncaster swimming pool in August despite the leisure complex following the guidelines of the Institute of Sport and Recreation Management that every two children between the ages of five and eight must be accompanied by a swimming adult. The child was pulled unconscious from the water but lifeguards and paramedics were unable to revive her.

• A 21-year-old farm worker from Northallerton in North Yorkshire died during harvesting at Upper Chute in Wiltshire. He was driving a combine harvester which came into contact with overhead power lines and was electrocuted.

• Nearly 100,000 workers in the public sector suffered assaults last year, which is equivalent to 275 a day. About 60,000 of them were working for the NHS and 20,000 were in the teaching profession.

• Cooling towers and wet air-conditioning systems in Dudley, West Midlands, were taken out of action in August following an outbreak of legionnaires’ disease. One woman died and four other people were hospitalised after contracting the respiratory illness.

• A block of flats which had just been built in Hertfordshire was destroyed by a series of explosions and a fire in August. The 100-foot blaze caused the whole street to be evacuated and 14 nearby houses suffered heat and smoke damage. The flats, comprising 84 unoccupied homes, had been developed at a cost of £9 million.

• Three young boys wearing knee-length shorts were not permitted to swim at Harlow Pool in Essex in August for “health and safety reasons”. Officials there stated that long shorts could hamper weaker swimmers.

• A six-year-old girl was attacked by two rottweilers while staying at a holiday chalet on a working farm in County Antrim, Northern Ireland in August. She underwent emergency surgery for her injuries and the dogs were destroyed by their owner, the farmer. The chalets, also owned by the farmer, had been approved as family accommodation by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, who suspended the farm’s listing pending an investigation.

• A 52-year-old worker at a Sainsbury’s supermarket in Manchester died in August after tackling a customer suspected of shoplifting. He collapsed with chest pains and underwent surgery but subsequently died. The suspected shoplifter, aged 21, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

• A water buffalo escaped from a field in Cumbria in early September and caused an accident on the A590 near Dalton-in-Furness in which three people were injured. Their car collided with the animal, killing it. Two other cars collided with each other in an attempt to avoid the animal.

• Some nurses have been banned from wearing rubber clogs due to health and safety issues. Swedish experience is that the footwear causes static electricity which can interfere with the functioning of electrical medical equipment. Other concerns are the possibility of body fluids seeping through the holes in the top of the shoes and penetration of the rubbery resin by needles.

• A string of construction fatalities in recent months caused the Government to announce proposals in mid-September to make building sites safer. It urged the appointment of union health and safety officers at every building site.

• There was an outbreak of Q fever in the Cheltenham area in September affecting 28 people between the ages of 40 and 70. The illness is rare and is usually caught from direct or indirect contact with farm animals carrying the organism Coxiella burnetii. Officials were investigating the outbreak as “unusual”. Some of the patients required hospital treatment but most were said to be recovering.

• The Royal Society has warned that urgent action is needed to make Britain’s stockpile of plutonium waste safe. More than 100 tonnes is stored at Sellafield but as yet there are no long-term plans for its secure disposal. A deep underground nuclear waste depository is not expected until between 2045 and 2075. Meanwhile the risk of an accident or a terrorist attack is severe.

• Three men working on a gas-rig supply vessel in the North Sea 25 miles off the East Yorkshire coast died in an accident in late September. They had been trying to stow an anchor chain in the bow of the Viking Islay. Two of the victims were from Scotland and the third from Poland.

• A technician was killed during the filming of The Dark Knight, a new Batman film, at the Ministry of Defence Qinetiq test track in Longcross, Surrey, in September. The camera truck in which he was working during the rehearsal of a Batmobile chase scene crashed into a tree. The driver of the vehicle was unhurt.

• A three-year-old boy suffered head injuries and subsequently died when he jumped off steps at school which were out of bounds, pretending to be Batman, in 2004. Only one member of staff had been supervising 59 pupils aged 3 to 11 at the private school. The headmaster was found guilty of breaching health and safety standards and was fined £12,500 and ordered to pay costs of £7,500 in September 2007.

• Under the Working Time (Amendment) Regulations 2007 the minimum statutory holiday entitlement for all employees increased to 4.8 weeks (24 days if working a five-day week) from 1st October 2007. Employee holiday entitlement is set to carry on increasing gradually for the next few years until employees are entitled to 28 days a year by 1st April 2009.

• The Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre in Warwick has found that bar staff are healthier since the ban on smoking was introduced. According to a study of 40 pubs, bars and restaurants across the country, air quality levels dropped from near hazardous in June to ones similar to the outside air in August. Staff were also found to have four times less cotinine (the metabolic by-product of nicotine) in their blood than in June.

• A concrete practice bomb was lost from an RAF aircraft during a training flight in early October. The 14kg bomb, which was not live, was dropped accidentally during a 90-minute journey by a Tornado GR4 which included low-level flying over Northumberland and north-east Scotland. An investigation into the incident has begun.

• Three visitors to Tate Modern have fallen into one of its art installations, a hairline crack in the concrete floor which widens to a few inches in breadth and a depth of about three feet. Their injuries were not serious but staff are now handing out leaflets warning visitors not to get too close to the exhibit. Tate Modern already faces a claim for compensation from a person injured on an earlier installation, a stainless steel helter-skelter.

• Welsh Water has been fined £60,000 plus costs of £69,399.43 for supplying water unfit for human consumption. 231 people in Gwynedd and Anglesey were infected with a parasite causing nausea, diarrhoea and headaches between October 2005 and January 2006. The victims included babies and pensioners. The chairman of the bench at Caernarfon Magistrates’ Court described the company’s failure as a “serious breach”.

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