HSE inspection campaign sheds light on health and safety issues

Last week 22 inspectors from HSE’s Yorkshire and North East Field Operations teams inspected 71 businesses in the Sheffield and Rotherham area. Of those visited 46 companies needed to make improvements to better protect the health, safety and wellbeing of workers in metal fabrication, engineering, general manufacturing and waste and recycling sectors. During the course of the week, inspectors served three prohibition notices and 31 improvement notices. Examples of some of the breaches found included poor controls of welding fumes and metal working fluids. In addition to where notices have been served, HSE has formally written to a further 23 local businesses to compel them to improve various aspects of health and safety. Andrew Denison, Acting Head of Operations said: “Protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of workers is of paramount importance and at the heart of what we do. The high proportion of breaches identified during this initiative indicates that the risks were not being adequately controlled. It's amazing how many companies simply assume there are no issues or concerns in their workplace because they've had no accidents/incidents. It's human nature I guess and probably why the vast majority of joe public get in their car, turn the engine on and drive away without carrying out a few basic checks beforehand (did you check your tyres, lights, wipers etc this morning before heading to work)? Trying to change people's mindsets to complete regular equipment inspections in order to spot minor faults and fix them before they develop into something more costly and dangerous is the sensible approach. It costs less to top up your tyre pressure before you set off than having a blowout at 70mph on a motorway (damage to your car/others, potential injuries/fatalities, damage to reputation, increased insurance costs, time off work etc). I use the car analogy because most of us can relate to that but it's the same in industry too - whether it be a forklift, ladder, overhead crane or basically anything covered by PUWER/LOLER in the workplace. Being able to monitor & record inspections & findings as part of the company's maintenance/safety processes can actually end up saving the company a fortune in the long-run by allowing planned maintenance, minimising downtime of equipment, and reducing the risk of accident/injury (and all the costs that can entail). It also helps ensure compliance to health and safety regulations and can keep the HSE inspectors happy with your actions. It doesn’t need to cost a fortune to implement an effective system, it doesn’t need to take hours of training and education to roll the system out. You can even create your own procedures / checklists in Excel for employees to follow, or you can use an app such as ours, which allows you to do everything digitally for an efficient, paperless solution. To find out more about our TakeAIM app and how it could help improve safety/maintenance procedures in your workplace please visit TakeAIM and the chance to test it out free of charge for yourself.

For more information on this story and others visit the HSE website.