Health & Safety

[noseall]

Great things! I noticed them using those drainage soakaway cubes

That's what we use.

 

[Steven Prentice]

Getting into Daily Mail terrtory here, a few over zealous health and safety advisors and all of a sudden the world has gone mad!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Plasterer I know uses old milk crates.

But are they hi-viz yellow?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I was working on a Carillion site a few years ago, and asked why hop-ups (which were perfect for our very-short duration, very frequent, but all over the site use) were banned.
"Because when we allowed them, the plasters would get two and a scaffold plank, and plaster off that".

I'd had my fill of Carillion and that sort of tosh a few years back, but all the big contractors are the same. For example, ISG banned the use of utility (Stanley) knives other than ones which self-retract because one of their labourers had injured themselves badly using one. Turns out (reading the safety noticeboard) that one of their managers had told a labourer to cut some pvc pipe. The guy did it with a Stanley knife (rather than a fine tooth hand saw - the safest option), slipped and gashed himself. So rather than analysing the problem - inadequate instructions given by one of their managers, inadequate supervision by same, lack of RAMS for the task at hand and use of inappropriate tools - rest of us had to put up with this restriction. Most people I knew ignored it and risked being red carded. The lead men on the roof got caught using Stanley knives and there was nearly a riot - after that the HSQE man didn't go up there very much. H&S has now got a reputation for far too much petty bureaucracy without any form of constructive approach, and on sites it is more and more in the hands of people who have never been tradespeople (so don't get me started on the subject of women HSQE officers)

My current annoyance is with another contractor who has banned step ladders completely - we have to use podiums instead. So the first place we need to install stuff on this job was at 9ft above floor level but the space is too small to set-up a podium........ You can't make some of this crap up

 

[John D v2.0]

All this just devalues actual health and safety! They should set up an official court for arbitration of heath and safety with judges, and if you find a stupid rule t can send it there, then the person who made the rule has to defend it under actual health and safety principles. If they are wrong, they have to change to a more sensible rule. Id they are right, then at least everyone understands why it's proportionate.

 

[Brigadier]

Then, on the other side of the coin, there are articles in every single issue of iosh magazine, where some poor kid has lost fingers, been crippled, or has died.
And it's never anything spectacularly outlandish: they were working without having been trained or supervised, with unguarded or inappropriate equipment, etc.
Bring back proper apprenticeships, where the next generation can learn from the experiences of those who've been there and done it.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

All this just devalues actual health and safety!

Like a lot of subbies I carry a reasonable amount of Public Liability insurance as well as Professional Indemnity insurance and legal cover. I became concerned about the new powers that the HSE were granted a few years ago, when they became self-financing. i.e. financed only from the fines they levy (surely a potentially corrupt system which encourages questionable behaviour on the part of their inspectors). Those powers permit them to levy fines on both the contractor and the individual tradesman (and BTW that even includes those doing one man private jobs in private houses), so I discussed the matter with my insurers who told me that where fines below £1500 were being levied it is often not worth fighting the HSE, although they would always look at an individual case and give me free advice, whereas above that level they would routinely expect to go to court on the grounds that the HSE often don't win, or are unwilling to contest as the court costs and defendants legal fees (should they lose) generally go against their "earned income" from fines. Wonderful system!

 

[mattylad]

A problem that I see is that, unless you have an active H&S person then it all goes unchecked, nothing stops breaches of H&S unless someone dies.
Then all poop breaks loose and things may get done, but only the things that bought about the death.
Everything else goes by the wayside.

 

[John D v2.0]

Then all poop breaks loos

 

[catlad]

It was a woman that came to see me with obviously no practical experience talking about this fantasy world
of construction, if it had been somebody in the trade
with a practical approach to H&S then I would have listened.
There will be consequences for your actions whether you like it or not H&S won't help you neither will insurance.
People will always maim or kill themselves its human nature. They should ban mobile phones from the work
place if they want a safer working environment.

 

[Brigadier]

It was a woman that came to see me with obviously no practical experience talking about this fantasy world
of construction, if it had been somebody in the trade
with a practical approach to H&S then I would have listened.
There will be consequences for your actions whether you like it or not H&S won't help you neither will insurance.
People will always maim or kill themselves its human nature. They should ban mobile phones from the work
place if they want a safer working environment.

That's sad, but it's when they kill and maim some other poor bugger (often through greed as much as ineptitude) that really boils my p!ss.

 

[Brigadier]

Like a lot of subbies I carry a reasonable amount of Public Liability insurance as well as Professional Indemnity insurance and legal cover. I became concerned about the new powers that the HSE were granted a few years ago, when they became self-financing. i.e. financed only from the fines they levy (surely a potentially corrupt system which encourages questionable behaviour on the part of their inspectors). Those powers permit them to levy fines on both the contractor and the individual tradesman (and BTW that even includes those doing one man private jobs in private houses), so I discussed the matter with my insurers who told me that where fines below £1500 were being levied it is often not worth fighting the HSE, although they would always look at an individual case and give me free advice, whereas above that level they would routinely expect to go to court on the grounds that the HSE often don't win, or are unwilling to contest as the court costs and defendants legal fees (should they lose) generally go against their "earned income" from fines. Wonderful system!

Google "fee for intervention".

 

[Tigercubrider]

Many sites do ban mobiles

Many "health and safety" rules are not based on H&S rules, but misunderstanding.

 

[Roger928]

People will always maim or kill themselves its human nature

Yep.

 

[John D v2.0]

H&S won't help you neither will insurance.
People will always maim or kill themselves its human nature.

You can say that but if you look at the accident rate during the industrial Revolution and compare with these modern times, yes there's always someone dies unnecessarily, but there are a lot of people with children and grandchildren living healthily still purely down to health and safety.
Heaven forbid it would be one of your or my relatives, but you never know who it could have been.