A Matter of Health and Safety

[Sir TophamHatt]

Inspired by a post in another area of the forum, I wonder whether the large amount of Health and Safety laws, policies and procedures has actually done more damage than good?

Thinking about the amount of people who blame others for their own mistakes (yes, I walked into that fast moving merry-go-round because there was no fence stopping me), or being slightly related (but perhaps a touchy subject) about the boy who died in the train depot because the fence was not maintained very well.

But then there's also the expense and delay while safe ways of working are worked out and safety officers / project managers having to think about every possible thing that may go wrong and write out some sort of policy for it.

Has the growing amount of legislation paved the way for common sense to become significantly less common as people are no longer taking responsibility for themselves or their actions (to a degree)?

 

Maybe I'm way off the mark.

 

I see the good things about health and safety, but also see how it's created problems through fear of people getting hurt.

[Ray H]

There's an advert on some TV channels presently advertising a legal firm happy to take on cases which they identify as medical negligence.

 

Yes, I know that some such can be traumatic & life changing but are we getting to the stage where mistakes aren't allowed to occur; where accidents can't happen? Just think of your own home (or your own layout) and how many times you've accidentally not done what you were hoping to because you made an error of judgement.

 

If we're not careful we'll end up as a (people) race where nobody is prepared to try anything new in case something goes wrong. 

 

Where would we be presently if the medical community hadn't tried to find a solution to the Covid virus just in case something went wrong during their experiments?

 

Think how long it now takes to right a wrong on the railway compared to the speed things were put right in days gone by.

[Gwiwer]

A balance needs to be struck.  

 

Common sense is less common than it once was because, in part, we create all these rules and guidelines, organisations to create and oversee them and a culture of "someone else's fault". But there are also many more of us living on an ever more crowded rock with all the frustrations that can bring from boredom to having a much busier (for example) railway with many more and faster trains making places like depots and level crossings more of a risk than they might otherwise have been even were the population the same.  

 

The test in law is "What would a reasonable person do?".  To my mind a reasonable person would maintain a boundary fence, take heed of the instructions when operating an electrical device, reprimand their child for doing something wrong / dangerous and take responsibility for their own actions.  A reasonable person would not intentionally climb a fence or cut a hole through it, take selfies on level crossings, lock their children out while they drink / smoke / gamble indoors nor blame anyone and everyone else they can for something.  

 

But it isn't a clear-cut line in the sand.  A balance has to be drawn.  I feel that in some areas we are in danger of being strangled by legislation which hinders more than it helps but in others we have enough evidence to support the need to protect the population at larger from themselves and their actions whether those be foolhardy, dangerous, unsafe, driven by alcohol or drug use or even euphoria.   

 

This is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.  

[APOLLO]

It used to be called Common Sense - seems to be now extinct. 

 

Brit15

[BoD]

There is a lot of legislation but It is also quite surprising how often Health & Safety gets blamed when rules and regulations are put in place that have nothing to do with the legislation.  ‘Oh, it’s health and safety’ gets blurted out far too often.

 

On the positive side, over the years unscrupulous employers have been prevented from putting employees at risk by penny pinching and treating them as an expendable resource. In so many ways sad that it should have been necessary.

Edited February 6, 2021 by BoD

[Trevellan]

These days I do a lot of work on tender submissions and there are many hurdles for bidders to overcome, health and safety being just one. We have increasingly become a process-driven society, not always for the best of reasons.

 

I think Rick has summed it up well. A balance has to be drawn.

[tigerburnie]

Other side of the coin is a lot of unscrupulous companies now have to provide adequate equipment and a safe working environment, I can recall some shockers in the mid/late 20th century that would have been right at at home in Victorian times.

[Jonboy]

In my working environment it lead to a healthy considered discussion on how to complete jobs, ensured everyone left with the same number of limbs they arrived with and contractors taking care of their impact on our team as well as their own when completing maintenance.

 

 I think it works well overall but like anything in life it is an average with extreme attitudes and policy’s both ways....the health and safety manager that started demanding to see msds sheets for bic biros at a volunteer organisation where almost everyone bought their own pens being my favourite ....

[simontaylor484]

When i worked at the council H&S was taken to an extreme so much so if you actually complied with the systems in place you couldn't actually do your job. A lot was due to cost cutting. They couldn't afford the ppe they said you needed task in some cases.

 

My favourite was that you were nt supposed to answer your own mobile phone whilst at work. But how did the office contact you to send you to deal with a problem you have guessed it your personal mobile. 

 

Our vans were fitted with handwashing basins that had to be topped up with water good idea when you are emptying street litter bins. They were condemned fairly quickly because bin juice was running from the load down into the top of the filler of the wash equipment because some genius had them mounted under the cage body.

[stewartingram]

Before I retired I was working as a contractor on the Underground. I was one of a number of engineers who responded to faults as they arose, being directed by my seniors to wherever to do a "box change" as they had remotely diagnosed the fault. 90% of the time they were right; as one of the old school who in my previous job had to go out and diagnose, fix by changing, then repair the broken part, I thought it was money for old rope!

We had teams on 12hr shifts, based in the office/mess room until called. (Again much easier to do, my previous job saw me go from fault to fault). Now the point is, we had some members on shift who, to be blunt, were plain lazy. One in paricular stands out.

If the phone from "upstairs" rang (ie a potential job to do), he walked to the other end of the room - answering it would probably mean he was given the job.

If he did get given the job, he would try every excuse in the book not to go - you name it he tried it.

Same thing on arrival at sight. He had become H&S rep (almost self appointed) and again tried to get away from site on any H&S excuse. But of course if he really had to stay, there were excuses not to complete it. (In other words he wasn't technically good enough but came up with an excuse).

Now being H&S rep for the teams, led him to get involved with the H&S manager on site. Mind you, some of the things that one came out with often seemed to be bureaucratic - but he was in the paid post so had his job to do. Our engineer worked his way in with the H&S manager, his aim was to become his assistant we believed, just to get out out of doing a "real" job. Shows that a lot of the job was actually job-creation in my book; the manager actually tried to get him there but HR wouldn't create the post.

And the ironic thing? Just before I retired, he got a manager's job on one of the new contracts we got, actually to do with the signals upgrades on the tube. Now, presumably, he HAS to get the job done, just the opposite of the way he used to "work"!

But my sources tell me that some of his old ways still persist, like sneaking off early well before the end of shift so that he wasn't available for late items in that shift.....

[30801]

1 hour ago, Ray H said:

There's an advert on some TV channels presently advertising a legal firm happy to take on cases which they identify as medical negligence.

 

Yes, I know that some such can be traumatic & life changing but are we getting to the stage where mistakes aren't allowed to occur; where accidents can't happen?

 

The second thing is basically aviation. There was some effort I recall to apply aviation style procedures to medicine. There was some reluctance from doctors unwilling to bother with the new procedures but when quizzed would like any doctors treating them to be following those procedures.

[Neil]

2 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Inspired by a post in another area of the forum, I wonder whether the large amount of Health and Safety laws, policies and procedures has actually done more damage than good? ....

 

No, health and safety legislation has been a force for good. It's designed to protect the workforce and public and in a roundabout way the employer from spurious claims for damages. Sometimes the more knobby right wing commentators would have you believe that nothing can be done because of' health and safety gone mad' but in reality keeping the workforce safe and healthy is the best route to getting the job done. 

[Wheatley]

Legislation designed to stop employers killing and maiming people in the name if profit is not the same as the legal profession then using those same laws to make a very fat profit out of twisting the detail of the legislation (or lack of detail) and exploiting it for their own ends. 

 

Neither is it the same as insurance companies playing both sides off against the middle by providing liability insurance to employers and 'no win no fee' insurance to claimants (you didn't really think the lawyers were taking the financial risk did you ?).

Edited February 6, 2021 by Wheatley

[Nearholmer]

3 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Inspired by a post in another area of the forum, I wonder whether the large amount of Health and Safety laws, policies and procedures has actually done more damage than good?

 

Emphatic "no" as regard the law from me. 

 

Most people who trot out this line have never taken the trouble to read, let alone understand, what H&S legislation actually says, and if they did, I defy any one of them to tell me that they'd be happy living/working in a world where the opposite of what it requires is true.

 

When it comes to policies and procedures enacted by individual companies, and individuals within companies, and ditto public services, IMO the picture is a lot less clear. Those policies and procedures are put in place by people who may or may not properly understand the law, and may or may not be much good at their job, so sometimes rather OTT, pointless, or ineffective things are done, and that brings the law into disrepute. And, as Stewart says above, some individuals cynically work the system for their own ends - C'est la vie, Rodney, c'est la vie.

 

Ask yourself: would I like to work somewhere where it is acceptable for my employer not to bother to do all that is reasonably practicable to protect my safety and health? I certainly wouldn't.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Nearholmer

[petethemole]

H&S legislation and the resulting requirements and training certainly made a difference in my former profession, archaeology. 

[Darius43]

 

Darius

[JeremyC]

I worked on ships for over 40 years and there was a noticeable improvement in safety and accident rates over that period driven to a large extent by legislation.

My boss used to say the trouble with common sense is that it's not very common. It has also been said people should remember that health and safety legislation is often written in someone's blood.

Edited February 6, 2021 by JeremyC

[eastglosmog]

I work in the quarry, mining and construction business.  They used to have one of the worst accident rates in the country.  (Remember Aberfan, a classic case of misplaced optimism that just because there have been a few near misses, nothing dreadful will happen?)  After a determined campaign by the HSE the trade has greatly improved and we manage to go several months without killing anyone and no longer lead tables of deaths per member of the workforce.  Workplace safety is a collaborative effort between bosses and workers, both have to take responsibility for everyone's safety.

[Wheatley]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Emphatic "no" as regard the law from me. 

 

Most people who trot out this line have never taken the trouble to read, let alone understand, what H&S legislation actually says .... Those policies and procedures are put in place by people who may or may not properly understand the law, and may or may not be much good at their job, so sometimes rather OTT, pointless, or ineffective things are done, and that brings the law into disrepute. 

That. (Apologies for snipping it). 

 

H&S legislation essentially says you must identify risks, control them, and tell your workforce and anyone else affected about them. It doesn't mention anything about banning conkers, extension leads, bare feet in soft play areas or home made school packed lunches. 

 

However, it has spawned a whole side industry, some if which is very useful and some considrably less so. 

 

We've just got ISO 45001at work, we don't need it but its predecessor, 18001,   was someone's vanity project ten years ago and now no-one dare drop it. One of the requirements is that our safety management system must 'consider the needs and expectations of stakeholders and interested parties', no-one from BSI, including three sets of auditors so far, can tell us exactly what that actually means in real terms. In the end we put a two page list of train operators, user groups and government agencies in an appendix to the risk assessment process and they seemed happy with that. 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Wheatley

[Reorte]

It's not perfect and I often find myself thinking I'd prefer to live in a somewhat less rigid world - there are occasions where I'd honestly prefer the risk, and not just because I want to act like an idiot. On the other hand there's no arguing against a lot of the good it's done either and various practices which I'm glad are now history, and hope they stay there (and there are still occasions where we see things and wonder how on earth that could still be OK).

 

I think it's more interesting to discuss the overall environment and attitude rather than the law itself, and how it is what it is. For example as has already been mentioned we sometimes hear of nonsense justified under health and safety that the law doesn't actually require. The easy response is to handwave it away - not what the law says, but that overlooks the environment and attitudes it's created, even where that isn't the intent. And it's no surprise that asking people to be more attentive to physical risk is going to also result in a reluctance to face legal risk, and hence possibly go too far.

 

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Ask yourself: would I like to work somewhere where it is acceptable for my employer not to bother to do all that is reasonably practicable to protect my safety and health? I certainly wouldn't.

Possibly I would. But it's not something that it's possible to generalise on, it's a case-by-case basis. I neither want to have to dance with death nor be patronised. Just working in an office I'm somewhat away from the riskier jobs anyway, and without experience of them I can't say for certain what my view would be.

 

That said any employer inclined to not bother is probably going to be one that's very much too close to the opposite extreme and thus one I wouldn't want to be anywhere near.

 

edit to add: This usually turns out to be a touchy subject...

Edited February 6, 2021 by Reorte

[The Stationmaster]

As far as the railway was concerned it was a huge positive step in an industry which had a good overall reputation for safety until you looked at personal accident statistics and the blame culture which went with them.   The standard personal accident report form contained two critical questions - 'Was the person in a place he was authorised to be?' and 'Was the person carrying out work he was authorised to do?'   And, critically at the top, in bold, the form read 'For The Use of the Board's Solicitor'.  If you answered 'no' to either or both of those questions it immediately reduced any possible injury etc compensation and because of that wording in bold at the top the injured party could be legally prevented from seeing how those questions had been answered.  The culture of implied blame was immediately established.

 

The modern process is now effectively asking the same questions with the huge proviso that there has to be documentary evidence that the injured person had not been told or instructed not to be in such a place or do such a thing.  The weight of responsibility has been firmly placed on the employer however Section 7 of the 1974 Act is still there placing a responsibility of reasonable behaviour on the employee.

 

Similarly once we had an idea at local management level of what was required - albeit a year or so after the Act became law - we had to prepare Area Safety Plans and apart from the work involved it definitely made us sit and think through some things.  It gradually, and very much so today, impacted on the way certain parts of the Rule Book are written particularly in respect of the clarity and coverage of personal safety Rules - that too is a great improvement on the way things once were.

 

The problem is not with the Health & Safety Act itself but the way in which some organisations use it to construct a framework to mitigate their exposure to financial risk through being sued or even allowing various things to take place on their premises.  That has gone beyond a risk management approach to a very legalistic financially based one.  Equally some of the various Regulations which have followed the Act have been seized upon, or indeed are badly drafted and take things to ludicrous extremes.  The Working At Height Regulations are a good example of this of this and NR is one of the culprits when it came to not thinking about them in a sensible manner (e.g in accident risk terms caged ladders tend to have a far higher accident rate below a certain height than uncaged ladders of that height as any informed H&S practitioner will tell you).

 

Risk assessing should be simple for an experienced assessor.  Some years ago I did some voluntary work for Cheshire Homes and my lady supervisor handed to me - with great trepidation. and considerable apologies - a risk assessment form to complete.  It took only a few minutes because I already knew all the risks involved and the mitigations in what I was going to do for them - she was amazed that a form could be completed that easily.  Consequent work instructions should be written for ease of understanding and ideally agreed with those who will use them - which implies once again that the person who prepares the work/process instruction understands that work/process.  And auditors should be ensuring that principle has been followed when checking the procedure for writing risk assessments etc and sampling assessments and work instructions. (And yes, I hold Lloyds Register audit qualification for this kind thing).

 

So H&S - great, it has saved lives and no doubt will continue to do so.  Misuse of H&S and getting all legalistic over it as a tool to mitigate financial loss - no.   And similarly using it as an excuse - no.

Edited February 6, 2021 by The Stationmaster

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

That said any employer inclined to not bother is probably going to be one that's very much too close to the opposite extreme and thus one I wouldn't want to be anywhere near.

 

Ah, but my (possibly too well hidden) point was that, before the current H&S legislation, you got no choice. Your employer didn't have any obligation to bother to do reasonably practicable things, and TBH a large proportion of them did exactly that: they didn't bother.

 

You, or your TU on your behalf, could take an employer to court for failure in their common law duty of care, although that was incredibly rare, and there were very specific regulations governing safety in a very narrow range of industries, but generally a lot of dangerous stuff was tolerated, and often the victims were blamed when things went wrong.

 

That's what people are asking to go back to when they suggest a bonfire of H&S law, although most of those asking don't know that's what they are asking for.

 

Offices, TBH, were never really the big issue in occupational safety, although they weren't always great in terms of long-term occupational health. H&S in offices can sometimes come across as petty, because it involves making small risks even smaller.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

Off at a tangent into "societal context" .......

 

There is a body of academic literature that looks at the trend of decreasing tolerance of risk in modern "western" societies, and tries to understand it, and its causes. The general thinking seems to be that as the "big killers" that caused high infant mortality and prevented people living to a particularly ripe old age have been conquered, and as we've (hopefully) moved beyond wars of mass-slaughter, and as we've become wise to the life-shortening power of things like smoking and industrial pollution, we've gradually come to value each life more, and have become less tolerant of the residual threats.

 

We seem to be genetically programmed to seek immortality! (which I misspelt, so that it looked like 'immorality', which we are also genetically programmed to seek)

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Edwin_m]

It may be instructive to review the "Health and Safety Myths" produced by the HSE, which contain many examples of what is and isn't necessary to comply with H&S laws - and of when people quote them as a justification to do what they wanted to do for some other reason.  

 

https://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/index.htm 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Edwin_m