Accidents at the Health and Safety Executive

 

The blogosphere is used to being quoted by the Daily Mail, sometimes without attribution (here, we certainly are), and sometimes with attribution but without prior permission, even though they sometimes pay up if you invoice them afterwards.

This morning the Mail have a corker of a story about Health and Safety at Work accidents happening at the HSE. It came from a Freedom of Information request; an excellent idea.

And I’m lifting bits of it to quote here, with attribution. Here are a few choice excerpts:

… staff at the Health and Safety Executive could perhaps do with reading their literature a little more often.

Its employees recorded a total of 53 accidents at work last year, according to figures released after a Freedom of Information request.

Fan those fingers:

Among them was a man who cut his eye on a piece of A3 paper and someone who cut two fingers after putting them into a fan.

And mind that toilet roll holder:

Another employee was bruised by a falling toilet roll holder.

Balance those risks:

an employee endured the indignity of a groin strain after tripping over a ‘Caution: Wet Floor’ sign.

Watch those dangerous boxes:

Staff in London fared little better with one slightly scalding themselves after spilling coffee and another incurring a bruise after walking into a box.

Follow the building regulations:

Another there was the member of staff struck by a falling roller blind

Dodge those dangerous balloons:

a man in Glasgow was treated after a balloon burst in his face

And what do they say?

Last night a spokesman for HSE said: ‘We take a common sense approach to managing health and safety risks in our workplaces.

‘We record all incidents within the organisation, including near misses and minor incidents, to help identify trends.

‘The number of serious health and safety incidents is very low.’

If you want some more serious coverage of Health and Safety, you may enjoy a Guest Blog series, mainly by H&S Professionals, I posted way back in 2007.

The best Health and Safety story I have concerned the Health and Safety of workplace goldfish.

When I was working near the Attenborough Nature Reserve in Nottingham, there was an attractive courtyard in the middle of our new office block; the courtyard contained a goldfish pond, which was discovered by a pair of herons from the reserve.

The site management introduced a set of aerial cables strung across the courtyard from the roof to keep the herons out, on the same principle as barrage balloons and the Luftwaffe in the London Blitz.

Unfortunately, unlike Londoners, they were too late and all the goldfish had gone by then.

Each time an audience gathered around all the windows to watch; a superb way of not working.

While we’re on Health and Safety, this week Mr Grayling emphasised a Press Release from the HSE about teh “Top 10 Bizzare Bans“.

The right-on comedians at Left Foot Forward (and there accurate reporting was featured here yesterday) were exceedingly cross with the Government about the HSE press release – “Grayling’s tabloid pandering gone mad “, and tried to whip up a frenzy about alleging that tabloid papers were whipping up a frenzy:

Some of these, and others, made it into last week’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) top 10 “bizarre bans”, gleefully picked up and redistributed by Chris Grayling, the employment minister. And to think he almost became home secretary.

Never mind a slow news day, these are the kind of stories you’d expect to read about on a no news day. Yet, the tabloids have gorged on them with a sense of delight and excitement at another chance to expose meddling bureaucrats and society’s lack of ‘common sense’.

Yep – a 750 word story about a non-story on a no-news day.

Imagine it – a politician using Press Release from authoritive industry body to further his political objectives.

The horror.

Personally, I think LFF grabbed the wrong end of the wrong stick: I’m in favour of the HSE pointing out pointless or badly chosen bans that are bad practice, waste money, don’t help safety or encourage bad practice.

---

Copyright © 2011
This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it makes the page you are viewing an infringement of the copyright. (Digital Fingerprint: 210151919291e753b0bdad69be5b9493)

Accidents at the Health and Safety Executive is a post from: Anna Raccoon

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AnnaRaccoon/~3/EgXcvR9Xi_E/