Fire Safety Videos made and branded for you

Our great new fire video has been produced for one of our social housing clients to promote fire safety with its tenants!

The Home Fire Safety Vid provides both shocking scenes and fantastic fire safety advice.. 

To get your own version contact our office and ask for a preview.. You won't be disappointed.
http://www.constructionsafe.co.uk/Contact.aspx

HSE Myth Busting a Huge Success

Health and Safety Myths

Following 3 weeks of promoting with clients the myth busting articles from the HSE we have seen huge improvements in the attitude of health and safety within businesses.

The voice of reasonable response to health and safety myths has enabled a degree of credibility to the majority of sensible health and safety actions.

Whilst many of the myths are just laughable, they are in actual fact very dangerous to workplace safety.

With the blame of these myths being placed at the door of the Managers, Directors and Boards of businesses not to mention the professionals working in the industry, it's little wonder why people would get the 'speed hump'.

"Eliminate Eliminate Eliminate..."

Those knee jerk reaction health and safety decisions, some of which resemble the Darlek's in Dr Who (or was that exterminate? :)), are probably the result of a misguided attempt at a hierarchy of control or a fear of repercussions of getting it wrong.

In some cases many just don't quite understand the implications of decisions and feel that banning some everyday tasks is more appropriate.

Perhaps with the success of this panel many will begin to consider risk assessment again, and we will see less of the mindless robots chasing Dr Who to do one!

Thank you HSE and the panel for providing an excellent service in this work.

Are you lost in the Tardis

Contact: 08458350199 

Visit: www.constructionsafe.co.uk 

For more information about H&S Myths please visit:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/

HSE Focus 2013 / 2014

July 2013

HSE Focus on Small Sites over Next Year

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published its programme of work for 2013/14 which will see it prioritising its inspection effort on small sites, asbestos removal work and refurbishment projects. 

Over the next 12 months, the HSE will increase its inspection rate of small sites from 30% to 35% of all sites visited as well as take forward its work on revising the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and simplifying health and safety information for businesses.

The specific risk areas that HSE will be focusing on include:

• Fragile roofs
• Fireplaces
• Roof tile cutting
• Health risks in paving and block 
• Lifts in buildings 
• Temporary Demountable Structures
• Fire (timber frame structures).

The programme also sets out what the industry can expect when an HSE Inspector visits a site which will include assessments of:

• Working at height
• Asbestos risks
• Provision of welfare facilities
• Site conditions
• Respiratory risks and adequacy of PPE use
• Leadership of health and safety on site
• Management of health risks 
• Worker involvement in health and safety
• Contractor competence 
• Temporary works.

Get more information on how you can manage safety from Construction Safety UK on 0845 835 0199 or at www.constructionsafe.co.uk 

If you are a small business you can get a free management system for safety on site at www.safetybank.co.uk 

HSG 007

Super Spy Health and Safety Guide

In honour of the new role of H&S manager that Mi5 are looking for we thought we would create a guidance document especially designed for the spy activity to help them!

We are calling it HSG 007

Your super spoof guide to Spy Safety






Policy 

Mi5 is committed to the highest standards of health and safety of its operatives. We provide a policy to support this:

We will:

• Define the responsibilities and duties for all the employees but we may not tell you about them until afterwards
• Maintain mission debrief systems to monitor and review the effectiveness of the Health & Safety processes 
•  Consult with the employees share information with the other appropriate agencies unless they are the enemy
• We commit to denying all tabloid reports about risks we face and strive to ensure that they remain secret 
• We ensure that everyone is adequately trained and has the appropriate license
• We provide safe access and egress from our working environments and where safe egress is not possible, provide little red pills so as to ensure that our privacy policy remains intact 
• The side effects of all chemicals and substances used are not always known so we will do our very best to manage, store and handle them off the coast or in secluded sparsely populated areas.
• Ensure that the policy is not brought to the attention of anyone
• Provide safe systems of work and equipment, which are designed to remove by force or explosion all risks identified through risk assessment, to employees, and the general public
• Ensure that the policy is regularly reviewed and if necessary, revised in keeping with The Official Secrets Act 1989
• Regularly review operational risks and make available to our employees relevant guidance through a secured line or satellite phone in order to undertake their roles and responsibilities unless such communication may compromise national security. 

Risk Assessment 

Due to the nature of the work risks can be identified but in a lot of cases good guesses may be required.

If you see at any point a man holding a golden gun you MUST act immediately to remove the risk.

If there is a risk identified the following acceptable control measures have been approved and may be used:

1. Blow it up - using approved explosives only
2. Shoot it - ensuring that your firing equipment is fully tested prior to use
3. Call in an air strike - using form F25007

We will monitor the effectiveness of the control measures and review these at regular intervals. 

If any of them do not work safe egress is recommended 

Ensure that all activities are risk assessed prior to commencement, and a dynamic risk assessment is completed in the field

Site Induction tips - Part 1

As part of our induction series, we are starting by listed out some of our experience tips that anyone who is giving an induction might find useful..

After years of delivering countless site inductions to some willing and some not so willing construction teams, we thought it might be useful to share our tips, and actually remind ourselves of the good, the great and the not so great.

For the critics, this isn't a definitive list or things you must do, its just some helpful things that have worked for us in the past.

1. Get your content right before you start

Giving a little more thought to a site induction than just reading through a check list works wonders. We have seen (and sat through) inductions that have ranged from 3 mins - 7 hours. Some were relevant some were bonkers.
The truth is that the length of time really doesn't matter if the content and quality is right. We will be providing our guide tips to content shortly so stay tuned to the blog.

2. Start work with the induction

Remember that this induction is likely to be the tone which these guys will be starting work on site or finding out about a new stage of the site. This is really important to remember because it ties in with the old saying 'start as you mean to go on'.

If you are not clear, if there is any ambiguity, if people leave in any doubt about what to do, or what is expected you have probably got an uphill struggle to clear it up later on. 

3. No Phones/ Tablets/ Papers/ Magazines in the room etc

Don't underestimate this rule, its difficult to discuss key topics with those participating if, there are world topics being debated, texting, facebook, or tweeting about being in a boring induction going on in the room.

The only time a tablet or phone should be discussed is when you are explaining how they will receive their SAFETYBANK tasks and that is only a 2 mins chat.

4. Signed in or zoned out

We all know its great to record an induction by getting signatures of all those who attend. What I have always found to be handy is to get this signed and back in front of you BEFORE you start going through the detail. 

The danger is that between passing, reading, signing, checking whether any of your mates have signed 'mickey mouse' the team  are missing something.

5. Have the correct PPE in the room

If you are going to tell someone about PPE requirements on site, make sure you have the right stuff in the room with you. 

Visual examples are brilliant when reinforcing your description to the participants and usually opens some questions about the wonderful variations they have or want to be allowed to use. It means you can be clear and concise from the outset and it means that any questions get answered.

We have even used bad examples of PPE as part of the induction to demo what will NOT be accepted.

6. Be visual where possible

A BIG NO NO - is just telling people where they can find out this detail. People wont, despite what you might think, make their way over to the notice board as soon as you finish and go and find this out!

As explained above when talking about PPE try and use as many visual aids and examples as possible. This can be very useful if you dont use distinguishable stickers or clothing when identifying key people.  

A photo to point out people such as first aiders, fire marshals, site managers etc or if you can bring them in an introduce them.  

7. The point of safety is SAFETY

If you are going to talk about safety make sure thats what you stick to. Dont confuse the whole dynamic by talking about personality or your preferences unless you can give real examples of why this improves safety.

We have heard far too many people delivering an induction to telling people they dont like - this type of tool, that type of access equipment. Although you might not like it, and you are welcome to an opinion, share the real reasons with the site team otherwise it takes away the entire safety aspect of the exercise.

8. Explaining the site rules

Reading out site rules is a brilliant example of failing to explaining the site rules. Don't be confused by what this mean.
 Us construction people can be innovative, imaginative thinking types and exploring new techniques for getting to where we need to, and this goes for inventing our own reasons for site rules and when they apply.

Explaining site rules is really important to get right in order to make sure the captive participants are joined together with you in upholding this important part of the work.

By all means tell the team a rule but ALWAYS follow up with why it is in place. If you don't they may think you haven't thought about it (it really is through experience that this was learned when delivering for a contractor).

For example: If you have a rule about using mobile phones, explain why, whats the penalty if they break the rule, and tell them where they can go to use their phone.

If its no smoking on site, why is it no smoking, what can happen when you do smoke and what can be enjoyed by those caught breaking it.
If you have given good reason for it, noone can be under any illusion as to the fact you have this in place for a reason. 

9. Creating questions gives answers

Encouraging participation by the team is essential to a good site induction. Asking questions to the team (not asking 'are there any questions?' - that's different), helps to get people engaged and feeling that the site induction is actually for them.

There is nothing worse than a room full of nodding hard hats or grumbling hi-vis. 

A favourite question (but I'm sure you have your own) is 'what is the worst safety accident you have seen on site?'. That question does two fantastic things, encourages a discussion on it, and the answers reinforce the fact that actually safety is a really important part of this job and what happens when things go wrong.

10. Making it personal has a lasting impression 

When people leave the induction we want them to remember what has been gone through. This is down to all of the simple factors such as, content, delivery, and participation etc. but you can leave them with a last impression by telling them why you want them to be safe.
Making safety and its importance, personal to you has the result of people understanding and believing you care enough about their well-being and its not just something you have to do.
Bare in mind, if you are not going to follow through with it and lead by example, the participants will soon realise this.

We are going to be updating our induction series regularly to please feel free to get involved and let us know the things that have worked for you.

Following a day online in safety

Following a day online in safety

Today we began to get into the detail of following progress of actions on www.safetybank.co.uk

On a daily basis you have a need to manage risk. From: your employees, training and equipment, to your properties, supply chain, documents and more, businesses need a simple solution to manage it all in one place..

Follow us on Twitter to see exactly how the progress is being made on the monitor by our teams on site 

https://twitter.com/CSAFEUK

Construction Magazine - Sneak preview

CONSTRUCTION SAFETY UK SUPPORTS BUSINESSES THROUGHOUT THE UK WITH A WIDE RANGE OF HEALTH AND SAFETY SERVICES.

HEALTH AND SAFETY OFTEN RECEIVES A NEGATIVE PRESS AND IS SOMETHING THAT MANY CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES CONSIDER AN AFTERTHOUGHT. 

However, CSAFE have made it their goal to turn that perception on its head and provide a service that makes H&S simpler and easy to manage.

'The Health and Safety consultancy market can often be a crowded one, but one in which CSAFE stands out. Not only do they have an experienced Health and Safety team, they are also at the forefront of technology and innovation, continuing to excel and lead by example.'

Over the past 18 months CSAFE have been developing and field-testing a unique and innovative new safety management software product aimed at the construction and property management industry – that launches in June.

'The future for CSAFE is clearly an exciting one!'

We feel we are defined by our innovative methods,supporting our long-term goal of changing theperception of Health and Safety within construction.

Read the full article in the April Edition of Construction Magazine - http://www.construction-online.net/