Element – I
The Foundations of Health and Safety
1.1 The scope and nature of workplace health and safety
All subject tend to use their own terminology and health and safety is no exception. Therefore, it is important that you understand from the beginning some of the most common terms used by health and safety professionals. These will be used throughout this course book. It is important that you can appreciate both the meaning of the terms and the difference between them. These are not always obvious to people who are new to health and safety but don’t worry you will soon be familiar with them.
a) Health, safety and welfare
Health: the most common definition of health comes from the world Health Organisation, namely: ” a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease, or infirmity”.
Health as a very wide meaning and does not just relate to whether you are free to a particular disease. It’s also take into account other things such how you feel both physical and emotional about your health, how you live, how you interact with society and the effect of the environment around you.
In relation to the definition of health we have just looked at think about:
the short term and long term health effect of drinking large amount of alcohol;
the effect on health of stress.
When used together, health and safety generally refers to all aspects of maintaining a healthy and safe workplace harm to people is prevented. This can include many issue such as laws, management system and training, as well as physical items such as guard on dangerous machines.
Safety: Safety is not merely the absence of an accident but the result of all person taking positive actions to identify accidents causing and implement suitable preventative measures.
The term safety tends to relate the physical dangers such as those from machinery or falling from a height.
Welfare: Welfare if the availability of facilities and presence of condition required for reasonable comfortable and healthy and Secure living.
Welfare facilities which should be provided and maintained for workers include toilet, washing facilities, rest facilities and drinking water. Workers should use welfare facilities correctly and help the employee to keep them clean and well maintained.
b) Accident comedy injurious occurrence, near-miss and work-related and ill-health
Accident: an accident is a unplanned occurrence which results in some loss, often an injury.
An accident is always an and plan a current. The most common kind of accident which occurs in workplace are slips, trips and falls: falls from height; being injured while carrying or moving object in a column being struck by moving or falling object.
Dangerous occurrence: International Labour Organisation (ILO) define a dangerous occurrence as a “Readily identifiable event as defined under National Law and regulations, with potential to carry and injury or disease to persons at work or the public.”
a dangerous occurrence is “any unplanned occurrence which normally result in some loss or damage to machinery and/or the workplace but has not resulted in injury.”
Examples of things which might be classified as the dangerous occurrence include large type folding collapses a crane overturning, and fires which stop normally activity for more than 24 hours in the workplace.
Near-miss: a near miss is a incident in which no injury or damage result
Generally, workplace incident are very much more likely to result in a near-miss that an actual injury. For everyone injury there are probably at least another 90 near-misses. The important thing is to report and act on a near me so that action can be taken to a sure that it doesn’t happen again. Next time the consequences could be far more serious. Near-miss reporting could be help highlight some of the less obvious hazards in the workplace or identify area where a problem is developing.
Work related ill-health: This is defined as any physical or psychological in health which is caused by or affected by your work.
The most common type of work related ill health include:
effort on muscles and bones of the upper Limb and back;
work related stress, which can be caused by many things such as poorly organized work, difficulties with colleague etc.
disease caused by exposure to certain Chemicals and other substance for example detergent causing dermatitis and asbestos causing lung disease;
hearing loss caused by long-term exposure to loud noises.
c)Health commerce safety and workplace fire law and guidance
Any country that has adopted International Labour Organisation convention C155 occupational safety and health convention 1981 must have, in their own country as system promoting health and safety which includes relevant laws.
In the UK and the laws which first started to regulate health and safety were first made many years ago. In certain Industries. Such as the manufacture and processing of cotton. The flow have been in place since the 1830’s. The Flo have changed a great deal over time and now the most important in England and wave is the health and safety at work etc. Act 1974 (HSW Act 1974) which regulate general safety health and welfare at work. Defective quit general and give very little actual detail on what should be done. The details are covered in legal regulations and order; approved code of practice and guidance.
d) health commerce safety and workplace fire enforcing agencies and inspectors
it is important that they are in forced by an independent regulator if they are doing to be effective. There should always be accurate penalties if the law are violated. The system of enforcement varies significantly around the world but is most often carried out by Labour Inspector or in the case of the UK by health and safety Inspector from either the health and safety executive (HSC) are the local authority. The health and safety executive Infosys health and safety at work factories, farms and building sites while the local authority have enforcement powers in offices shops, hotel and Catering and leisure activities. Workplace fire safety in the UK is generally regulated by the fire authority.
The range of powers that the expected have varies but most commonly:
- they can enter any premises:
- they will inspect workplace to check that people are obeying the rules as laid down by law and give advice;
- they can take samples for look at record;
- they can interview any persons;
- investigate incident and complaints.
1.2 The reason for practicing good standards of Health and safety
There are a number of very important reasons why organisations and workers should see health and safety as a priority. For ease of understanding, the reasons have been grouped under three main headings:
Moral: Very few if any organisation deliberately set out to allow their workers to be injured through their work. Most organisations and the people who work for them try to do what they believe to do be the right thing. Some people call this moral. Other call it it ethical or or humanitarian.
Many people across the world are killed or seriously injured at work each year. In 2005. The International Labour Organisation established that they may be many at 2.2 million people die each year ok as a result of work-related accidents and diseases. The number exceed by the average annual death from road accident. War and HIV/AIDS combined.
In the UK alone, from April 2009 March 2010:
- 152 peoples were killed as a result of work;
- nearly a quarter of million other injuries are believed to have occurred; and
- 1.3 million people believed they are suffering from an illness which was caused are made worse by their current or past work
These figures do not show the pain and suffering caused to the individuals concerned and the effect on their families and friends resulting from the occurrences.
The good news is the many e if not all of the injuries and diseases are preventable. The number injured have reduced significantly in the last 30 years. Mainly as a result of better health and safety standards.
Legal: Many countries of the world have laws to show that employers do as much as they can do prevent people being injured as a result of their work. This law also there to protect the general public from workplace dangerous. Obviously organisation wish to avoid prosecution. Since they could be fined coma they would receive bad publicity, more seriously, individuals within their organisation could go to prison.
Financial: Before you read this subsection, considered what sort of financial cost a company might income as a result of a poor health and safety standards. We will come back to the thing you’ve have thought of later.
Good health and safety practice is also a good business. Accident and ill health at work cost money. The health and safety executive estimate that in the UK alone 23.4 million working day are lost due to work related ill health and 5.1 million due to workplace injury. Spending money on health and safety before accidents occur will result in a much bigger saving later on. Next paragraph cost of business of accidents and ill health may be filed state of a, including such thing as:
sick pay for injured worker cynical and
accident investigation costs;
associated repair action;
lost productivity;
cost of additional workers to make up for loss of productivity in a
action will may be necessary to put write the health and safety problem.
1.3 The source of Health and safety information
there are many sources of Health and safety information which can help organisations meet their health and safety publications. Some of these are internal to the organisation, which others may be external.
Examples include:
Internal Sourse Of Information
Written/printed
- health and safety policy
- health and safety posters
- accident data and reports
- risk assessments
verbal
- verbal instructions from supervisor or manager
observational
- results from internal audits and infections possible carried out by Organisation on management
External Source of Information
Written/printed
- and other guidance from body such as the enforcing agency, trade bodies, etc.
- Material safety data sheet
- Manufacturers information
verbal
- verbal instructions from health and safety inspectors
Observational
- results from external audit and inspection possible carry out by health and safety consults