A common sense approach

Health and safety has been getting some bad press lately and if this was to be believed you would assume that the whole purpose is to stop people working.

It isn’t really like that – The purpose of health and safety law is to protect, as far as reasonably possible, everybody in the workplace.

The press reports indicate that some health and safety advisors are recommending that the risks associated with a particular task be removed completely even though this means that it is no longer possible to do the work.

Why is this type of thing happening?

There are probably a couple of reasons one is a fear of litigation and the other is probably inexperience on the part of the advisor. The advisor is partially correct in their approach as the law requires the employer to eliminate any risk as far as reasonably possible.

Any risk can always be eliminated – you just stop doing what ever it is – there you go problem solved!

This is not the answer because you need to do the job - so what can be done?

The HSE has published the principles of prevention as follows: -

PRINCIPLES OF PREVENTION

The principles are—
(a) avoiding risks;
(b) evaluating the risks which cannot be avoided;
(c) combating the risks at source;
(d) adapting to technical progress;
(e) replacing the dangerous by the non-dangerous or less dangerous;
(f) developing a coherent overall prevention policy which covers technology, organisation of work and the influence of factors relating to the working environment;
(g) giving collective protective measures priority over individual protective measures; and
(h) giving appropriate instructions to employees.

It can be seen from this that there is a way forward and the overall aim is always to avoid the risks and if this cannot be achieved then consideration should be given to reducing them and to replace with non-dangerous methods.

Elstead Health and Safety will approach any case with a common sense approach the aim will always be to eliminate the risks but we recognise that this is not always possible so we will consider all options and provide recommendations on the way forward.

Contact us now on 07785 718379