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|[pic] |HEALTH AND SAFETY NEWSLETTER |

| |February 2019 |

Index

Page 2 – Early doors – A look at early adoption of ISO 45001

Page 8 – Using ladders safely

Page 12 – Health Surveillance – What is it and do I need it for my workforce

Page 14 – Bupa hit with £3m fine over care home Legionnaires’ death

Page 16 – St George managers knew of segregation failings before ankle fractures

Page 18 – Director’s neglect behind concrete pump fatality

Early doors – ISO 45001

IOSH talks to four early registrants to the new management standard about their experiences and what surprised them. 

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Image credit: © iStock/Nastco

ISO 45001 will celebrate its first birthday this spring. In the run-up to its publication, businesses were assured that, though the emphasis differed, the new standard built on its predecessor OHSAS 18001 and certification would not be too onerous, especially for those familiar with the long-standing quality (ISO 9001) and environmental (ISO 14001) standards.

For a snapshot of early adopters’ experiences, IOSH Magazine spoke to representatives from four registrants: CBRE Global Workplace Solutions (CBRE GWS), which specialises in facilities and project management; building science centre BRE Group; geoscience specialist the British Geological Survey (BGS); and Affinity for Business, a water provider to business.

The organisations, all of which had different starting points, agreed that implementation was a positive process. They also agreed that a thorough reading and understanding of the new standard was essential to success and that it was critical not to fall into the trap of trying to make the business fit the standard.

None of the organisations found it particularly challenging to deal with the differences between 18001 and 45001, such as the greater emphasis on leadership and worker participation and consultation. Instead, they felt the new standard was to some degree “catching up” with existing good practice. However, some found the new structure and terminology a stumbling block.

Systematic and regimented

ISO 45001 differs from its non-ISO predecessor in that, rather than focusing narrowly on OSH procedures, it looks at the interaction between an organisation and its business environment.

The standard requires safety and health aspects to be part of an overall business management system, with a greater focus on risk and opportunities and more integration into wider business strategy. To meet the requirements, organisations must look beyond immediate OSH issues, taking into account what wider society – contractors, suppliers and neighbours – expects of them

If you had a reasonable manual for BS OHSAS 18001, convert it

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BGS had previously been working to achieve 18001 but switched when it became clear that 45001’s publication was imminent. James Corbett, BGS’s senior health and safety adviser, found the differences between the old and new standards greater than expected. “18001 is a very operational standard,” he says. “This is much more strategic. It talks about scope, context, engaging with different levels of the business. And so it really made us step back and quantify what we do in that terminology.”

Rosemary Brown, who worked with Affinity for Business to achieve all three standards (9001, 14001, and 45001) as part of an integrated management system (IMS), reinforces this point: “I think anyone just doing 45001 after having 18001 will find it slightly complicated if they haven’t also done 9001 and 14001. It’s a very different approach – much more systematic and regimented.”

For Ray Jeffery, health, safety and environment manager at BRE Group, the challenge was less about meeting the core requirements – which his organisation was well placed to do, having recently migrated to the revised 9001 and 14001 – and more about appreciating the extent of the alterations in the sequence and structure of the new standard.

“This was quite a surprise when we initially did a gap analysis to tally the numbers up,” he says. “We had heard that it hadn’t really changed very much. In some ways it hadn’t, but it has really reshuffled the sections and clauses, as well as altered the terminology.”

Twice read

All the practitioners emphasised the importance of reading the standard thoroughly. This might seem obvious but “the devil’s in the detail”, warns Brown. One of the trickier aspects for her was the extent of the requirement to define external issues and interested parties.

“This was a much wider remit than we’d understood previously,” she says. Affinity’s office is on the second floor of a shared block. “Although we’d considered our immediate neighbours underneath, “we hadn’t looked at the owners of the block of flats under construction behind and their service road, and how that impacted on us in terms of road safety and drainage.”

Brown also stresses the need to note common factors that are not relevant to your business. “If you don’t do something, put it in the policy that you haven’t done it because you don’t have it in your business.”

BGS’s stage one audit was in March 2018. “We’d acquired the final standard just two days before, on the day of publication,” says Corbett. “In effect, we used stage one to do a desktop exercise with the auditors and go through the whole thing on paper. We went through every single line and talked about what it meant, and what we had to do to prove we met the requirement. That was incredibly useful.”

He recommends reading the standard, re-reading it, and then giving it a week before reading it again. “Every time you’ll see something different and understand it in a different way,” he says.

In translation

Corbett admits the standard’s phrasing was a challenge for his team and for the rest of the staff, mostly research scientists.

“It is phrased in business-speak, not health and safety– or science-speak, and translation is difficult,” he says. “We had to interpret what 45001 means to an organisation that doesn’t use that kind of terminology.”

In particular, understanding context and scope was daunting at first. “We sat with the auditor, and when we got to that we fell silent,” says Corbett.

“Our business has been functioning for more than 100 years and we know what we are and what we do, but we had never written it down or identified it in this way, so we had no resource material to call on.”

Once the team understood the requirements, however, the process of defining context and scope was relatively straightforward, as well as useful.

“The standard made us look more closely at our place in the environment and local community,” says Corbett, “and our commitment to internal and external stakeholders and interested parties.”

Jeffery’s view is that, although context was not an explicit requirement of 18001, it is fundamental to any management system. “One of the first questions we had [for the auditor] was: ‘Are we covering the context and interested parties requirements correctly?’ He replied that any business that doesn’t understand its context wouldn’t be in business for long. If you don’t know what you’re doing, how are you doing it?”

Jeffery reiterates the importance of staying focused and not being fazed by the new terminology. “You know what your organisation does: look at that – your vision and mission – and use it to reflect on what you are doing with health, safety and wellbeing.”

Another feature of the new standard is a requirement to identify not just risks, but also opportunities. This was a cause of trepidation for some.

“We looked at the word opportunity and asked what that meant to us,” says Corbett. “Then we realised we get opportunities all the time; we just don’t see them as opportunities. For example, the auditor noticed some racking in a storeroom that had not been inspected, so there was an immediate opportunity to look at that and improve our processes.”

CBRE GWS was already certified to 14001, 9001 and 18001 within an IMS, so was ahead of the game here. “We did have to think about risk and opportunity,” says Richard White, quality, health, safety and environment director.

“But we were already doing it as part of our wider risk management framework, so we could easily demonstrate both the risks we’re managing and the opportunities to improve management of risk.”

Controls to manual

One selling point for ISO 45001 is that it shares ISO’s high-level structure (Annex SL), in common with revisions to ISO 9001 and 14001. This makes it easier to incorporate in an IMS, an advantage welcomed by the four organisations we spoke to. 

Jeffery’s top tip for colleagues embarking on the 45001 process is to continue to use a manual to document and record how the management system operates. “Looking from the outside, 45001 does not indicate that you need a formal manual any longer,” he says. “But it’s quite a beast and I would say that you are never going to manage it without one. If you had a reasonable manual for 18001, convert it and pick up the new terminology within it. If you’re starting off cold, build a manual to answer all the questions and follow it through.”

At BGS, Corbett also found this critical: “We needed a document that sat between our policy and the operational stuff people do on the ground. We produced a set of ten very short documents under the overarching safety management system heading. But what is important is that there was nothing in these documents that we didn’t already do; the problem was we had not laid it out in evidence format.

“We approached it as smartly as we could. The longest document – at eight pages – is the arrangements, which goes through the plan, do, check, act methodology, and the shortest is two pieces of paper talking about the scope.”

Straight talking

For the auditors (BSI for CBRE and BGS, LRQA for BRE, and NQA for Affinity for Business), 45001 is also new territory. “With the new aspects of the standard, we explored it together,” says Corbett. “BSI was asking these questions for the first time itself too, albeit with a lot of previous experience of 9001, 14001 and 18001. And I think the auditors found the process very useful. We helped each other out.”

White describes his company’s relationship, also with BSI, as “challenging but supportive”, which he believes is crucial for success. “You don’t want it too cosy and comfortable,” he argues. “Be prepared to have robust conversations.”

He points to a particular exchange over management review.

“The auditors were maybe expecting to see a piece of paper and for us to say ‘here’s our record of management review’,” he says. “But we argued we’ve got numerous levels of review across the business: board reviews, regional reviews, contract/account reviews on every account every month. This for us is management review, rather than an annual process designed specifically to meet a clause in the standard. Our process is continual and applied across all parts of the business.”

Submitting evidence of that to the auditor convinced him that this aspect was covered.

“We do it but not simply to meet the standard; we do it as part of our business process,” says White. “That’s a recurring theme we were at pains to point out during the whole audit. Here’s what we do as a business: here’s how it meets the standard – do you agree? You will never see a specific process written to meet a specific clause requirement: we do it because it’s right for the business.”

White’s team found it did not have to make big changes to existing practice to attain the standard.

“We refocused and slightly adjusted a couple of processes, including around hierarchy of control,” he says. “Obviously that’s nothing new but, unlike 18001, the new standard includes it as a specific requirement, so we did have to think about whether we were sufficiently explicit.”

Top down, bottom up

Perhaps the most publicised differences between 45001 and 18001 are those relating to leadership and worker participation. But for businesses already operating good practice, these present few challenges.

“It’s got to be driven from above,” says Jeffery. “We have a very active CEO. The CEO is a key player. If they don’t help, you will be struggling to get it embedded.”

White adds: “Our CEO and president of operations are fully behind the importance of management systems and standards. Our president of operations was actively involved, to the extent that he joined the audit with BSI to explain what he does, and his active leadership of QHSE in the business.”

White holds similar views on the worker consultation requirements. “This comes back to the point about the standard catching up with business practice. Why wouldn’t you involve them in this? They know the risks, the job, and the short cuts that might be taken to complete a task, so they must be actively involved in the drive for continual improvement.”

Though CBRE’s arrangements for participation and involvement were robust, White says the standard “did help to focus our thoughts in terms of how we ensure our workers are engaged and how effective our communication is in practice”. And the auditors tested the words they had heard in the field at account level by talking directly to employees.

The auditor also focused in on these “new” requirements at Affinity for Business. “We’d implemented a health and safety group for staff and a group for the senior management team, so that was all documented,” says Brown. The audit included conversations with individual workers and examining meeting minutes.

Time to reflect

All the practitioners, even those familiar with ISO standards, felt one of the biggest benefits of implementation was the chance to gain a new perspective.

“It’s not necessary even to go for certification,” says Brown, “but it will help to develop procedures and discipline. That’s what 45001 is, a discipline to make sure you think about what you need to do to carry out your business safely.”

The standard also proved a useful strategic planning tool. “By identifying areas where we are weaker, it gives us the opportunity to plan for where we can improve,” says Corbett, “which brings us back to the concept of risks and opportunities. You could, of course, do it in a different, very technical, prescriptive way by focusing on achieving the right things to pass. But I think your business would suffer; it’s not sustainable.”

Using ladders safely

Every time you use a ladder you should do a pre-use check beforehand to make sure that it is safe for use. A pre-use check should be carried out by:

• the user

• before using the ladder for a work task

• after something has changed, i.e. a ladder dropped or moved from a dirty area to a clean area (check state or condition of feet)

The benefit of conducting pre-use checks is that they provide the opportunity to pick up any immediate/serious defects before they cause an accident.

Things to look for

Stiles need to be in good condition

Do not use the ladder if stiles are bent or split as the ladder could collapse.

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Check the feet

Do not use the ladder if feet are missing, worn or damaged as the ladder could slip.

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Check the rungs

Do not use the ladder if rungs are bent, missing or loose as the ladder could become unstable.

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Using stepladders safely

Things to look for

Check the locking bars

Do not use the stepladder if locking bars are bent or the fixings are worn or damaged as the ladder could collapse.

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Check the feet

Do not use the stepladder if feet are missing, worn or damaged as the ladder could slip.

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Check the stepladder platform

Do not use the stepladder if the platform is split or buckled, the stepladder could become unstable or collapse.

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Check the steps/treads

Do not use the stepladder if the steps/treads are contaminated as they could be slippery.

Check the steps for strength and stability

Do not use the stepladder if the fixings are loose as they could collapse.

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Check the stiles

Do not use the stepladder if stiles are bent or damaged as the ladder could buckle or collapse.

Common work with ladder Myths

HSE have banned the use of ladders on building sites and other workplaces

No, this isn’t the case. Ladders and stepladders can be a sensible and practical option. They can be used for work at height when the use of other work equipment is not justified because of the low risk and short duration (short duration means working on a ladder for no more than 30 minutes at a time); or when there are existing workplace or site features which cannot be altered.

Health Surveillance – What is it and do I need it for my workforce

What is health surveillance?

Health surveillance is a system of ongoing health checks. These health checks may be required by law for employees who are exposed to noise or vibration, ionising radiation, solvents, fumes, dusts, biological agents and other substances hazardous to health, or work in compressed air.

Health surveillance is important for:

• detecting ill-health effects at an early stage, so employers can introduce better controls to prevent them getting worse

• providing data to help employers evaluate health risks

• enabling employees to raise concerns about how work affects their health

• highlighting lapses in workplace control measures, therefore providing invaluable feedback to the risk assessment

• providing an opportunity to reinforce training and education of employees (e.g. on the impact of health effects and the use of protective equipment)

Your risk assessment should be used to identify any need for health surveillance.  You should not use health surveillance as a substitute for undertaking a risk assessment or using effective controls. 

Health surveillance can sometimes be used to help identify where more needs to be done to control risks and where early signs of work-related ill health are detected, employers should take action to prevent further harm and protect employees. 

When putting in place a health surveillance programme, avoid blanket coverage for all employees as it can provide misleading results and waste money.

When reading this guidance remember that health surveillance is a particular legal requirement and should not be confused with:

• activities to monitor health where the effects from work are strongly suspected but cannot be established

• workplace wellbeing checks, such as promoting healthy living

• fitness to work examinations e.g. fitness to dive, operate cranes, forklift trucks or health assessments requested by night employees

Is health surveillance required in my workplace?

Risk assessment and controls

The starting point is your risk assessment. Through this you will have found out the hazards in your workplace, identified who is at risk and taken measures to do something to control the risks.

Where some risk remains and there is likely to be harm caused to your employees, you will need to take further steps. Consider health surveillance if your employees are at risk from:

• noise or vibration

• solvents, dusts, fumes, biological agents and other substances hazardous to health

• asbestos, lead or work in compressed air

• ionising radiation

Control measures may not always be reliable, despite appropriate checking and maintenance, so health surveillance can help make sure that any ill health effects are detected as early as possible.

Do I need health surveillance?

If there is still a risk to health after the implementation of all reasonable precautions, you may need to put a health surveillance programme in place

Health surveillance is required if all the following criteria are met:

• there is an identifiable disease/adverse health effect and evidence of a link with workplace exposure

• it is likely the disease/health effect may occur

• there are valid techniques for detecting early signs of the disease/health effect

• these techniques do not pose a risk to employees

What sort of health surveillance do I need?

Where your risk assessment shows that you need to implement health surveillance, you will need to put into place a programme that adequately addresses the risks and potential ill-health effects your employees may be exposed to. 

In its simplest form, health surveillance could involve employees checking themselves for signs or symptoms of ill health following a training session on what to look for and who to report symptoms to. For examples employees noticing soreness, redness and itching on their hands and arms, where they work with substances that can irritate or damage the skin.

A responsible person can be trained to make routine basic checks, such as skin inspections or signs of rashes and could, e.g., be a supervisor, employee representative or first aider. For more complicated assessments, an occupational health nurse or an occupational health doctor can ask about symptoms or carry out periodic examinations.

Bupa hit with £3m fine over care home Legionnaires’ death

A division of health care provider Bupa Care Services has been fined £3m in a prosecution brought by HSE following the death of an 86 year old resident of its Hutton Village care home in Brentwood, Essex from Legionnaires’ disease.

Bupa Care Homes, which operates 42 care homes as part of a portfolio of 280 under Bupa Care Services, had earlier pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act at Ipswich Crown Court.

The Leeds based company was also ordered to pay costs of £151,482.

Following his move to the home in March 2015, Kenneth Ibbetson contracted Legionnaires’ disease three months later, and died at Basildon Hospital on 23 June 2015.

According to BBC News, the court was told that samples taken from the taps in his bathroom revealed a high concentration of legionella bacteria in the water.

A family impact statement read to the court described Mr Ibbetson's "very aggressive, painful and distressing death".

“The risk is more acute in care home settings because residents are more susceptible due to their underlying health conditions. We would expect those who have a duty of care to understand this and have the necessary controls in place to manage the risk.”

HSE principal inspector Vicky Fletcher

The HSE investigation found that for more than a year, during which time major refurbishment at the care home was being carried out, Bupa had failed to implement the control and monitoring measures required to safely manage the hot and cold water systems in the home.

It also found those responsible for overseeing legionella controls and for taking water temperature measurements had not been trained to the required standard.

HSE principal inspector Vicky Fletcher said: “Mr Ibbetson and other residents were exposed to the risk of contracting Legionnaires’ disease because adequate controls were not in place.

“The risk is more acute in care home settings because residents are more susceptible due to their underlying health conditions. We would expect those who have a duty of care to understand this and have the necessary controls in place to manage the risk.”

Ibbetson’s daughter Caroline Peters told the court that her family had carefully selected the Bupa home “expecting that a leading health care company could be trusted with our father’s health and safety”.

She added that the evidence of “non-conformities and lack of managerial training was shocking and depressing and brought on feelings of utter despair for our family.”

Bupa Care Services managing director Joan Elliot said that Ibbetson's death had been an "isolated incident". She added: "We've made a number of improvements across all of our care homes to make sure colleagues' training is kept up to date.”

On 1 April 2015, responsibility for ensuring the health and safety of patients and service users in England passed from the HSE to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) covering all providers registered with the CQC.

Prior to this date, HSE had enforcement responsibility, hence its investigation and subsequent prosecution on this occasion.

St George managers knew of segregation failings before ankle fractures

St George City, the principal contractor on an east London construction project, and a scaffolding firm must pay fines totally £180,000 after a structural engineer was knocked down by a bundle of scaffolding tubes, which had been disturbed and rolled onto his legs.

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The engineer, who had to be freed from under the bundle, sustained fractures to both ankles and on his right leg. 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the engineer, who was accompanied by two managers at the former News International site in Wapping, east London, where the Times and Sun newspapers were formerly published, had approached four unattended bundles of scaffold tube stored on the ground when the incident happened on 15 September 2015. One of the bundles, which weighed about a tonne, had been stacked on top of the other three and rolled off when it was disturbed. 

St George City, the principal contractor for the Times House site, was overseeing demolition work in a confined footprint. 

PHD Modular Access Services, which had delivered the scaffold bundles earlier that day, had failed to ensure that the control measures to prevent access by unauthorised persons specified in its own risk assessment were in place. The risk assessment said the storage area had to be fully segregated using physical barriers.

St George City had signed off on the scaffolding firm’s storage requirements and should have been conscious of the difficulty of delivering materials to and storing them on a site with limited space. On the day of the incident, its site management had become aware that the scaffold materials were not fenced off but took no action.

St George City, part of the Berkeley Group, of Berkeley House, Portsmouth Road, Cobham, Surrey, pleaded guilty to breaching reg 13 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. It has been fined £130,000 and must pay £7,831 costs.

PHD Modular Access Services, of Oxford Road, Denham, Uxbridge, pleaded guilty to breaching reg 15 of the same legislation. It has been fined £50,000 and must pay £7,778 costs.

HSE inspector Gabriella Dimitrov said: “The contractors knew that it was a congested site with large demolition machines tracking around and as such required careful planning with regards to material arrivals and storage. The incident could have been easily prevented had suitable barriers been provided.”

Director’s neglect behind concrete pump fatality

A concrete pumping company and its sole director have been fined after a recently-employed worker was struck and killed by liquid concrete, which was ejected from a lorry-mounted pump.

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Image credit: HSE. The development at Cranbrook Road, Wimbledon

Twenty-six-year-old Kevin Hoare was attempting to clear a blockage when the incident happened at a housing development on Cranbrook Road, Wimbledon on 13 February 2017. Hoare, who had only joined Anytime McDaids two months earlier, was not being supervised and had not been provided with adequate training.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that the concrete pump company was subcontracted to another subcontractor, which was installing a reinforced concrete frame for a four-storey residential building. Concrete was regularly delivered to the site by mixer lorry. 

Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that the incident happened after concrete had been pumped to the required location on site. 

As Hoare began cleaning the pump lorry, a blockage developed. He attempted to clear it but did not follow the manufacturer’s instructions or guidance from the Construction Products Association. The HSE said that this resulted “in a sudden discharge of concrete and a cleaning ball, which struck and killed the operator”. 

The HSE found the company had no system to train operators to carry out the work safely, or arrangements to supervise them. Anytime McDaids failed to ensure the safety, so far as is reasonably practicable, of its employees and others who may be affected by their work due to the lack of adequate training and supervision. The firm’s failings were due to the neglect of its sole director Laurence McDaid. 

Anytime McDaids, of Greenford, Middlesex, pleaded guilty to breaching ss 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. It was fined £30,000 and must pay £12,103 costs.

Sole director Laurence McDaid, of Tooban, Burnfort, County Donegal, Republic of Ireland, pleaded guilty to an offence under s 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. He was fined £2,600 and must pay £637 costs.

HSE inspector James Goldfinch said: “Concrete pumps have great potential to be dangerous when operated by those without suitable training, as they operate under high pressures.”

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