Breach of Health & Safety at Work Act leads to £600k fine for Textile Company

Handling large machinery always comes with associated risks and it can be impossible to pinpoint the injury rate for a particular type of machine.

When using heavy equipment, like a packaging machine, it is imperative to put a formalised safe system of work in place and to train workers appropriately. Daily safety checks and routine hygienic cleaning ensure that staff are not at risk of injury.

Failure to carry out correct Risk Assessments leads to two workers sustaining serious injury

Risk assessments can seem to be an endless task but if you fail to have them in place there can be serious consequences.

Businesses have a responsibility to ensure all staff are aware of and understand the risks associated with their work as well as the environment they work in. A failure to do this can result in large fines and opens up the possibility of accidents in the work place.

Devon Contractors fined for breach of Health & Safety at Work Regulations

When it comes to health and safety on a construction site, making sure workers have the correct training and undertake the required procedures is imperative.

Working with heavy machinery, construction equipment and vehicles comes with a number of risks meaning you could injure yourself, someone else or cause a fatality.

Phoenix student Ian stars at NEBOSH graduation ceremony

The 2018 NEBOSH Graduation and Awards Ceremony took place on 25 June at Warwick University, and the name of Phoenix Health and Safety got a couple of honourable mentions on the day.

Pride of place goes to Phoenix student Ian Anderson. We’re delighted to announce that Ian won the Unit A National Diploma Best Candidate Award.

Shocking stats: why we need more workplace defibrillators and CPR trained staff

You’ve just suffered a cardiac arrest. What are your chances of survival. The bad news is that up to 95% of victims die without immediate treatment. How immediate?

Electrical flash over causes severe burns and serious fine

Two workers at a Nottinghamshire foundry suffered serious skin burns following a ‘preventable’ electrical flashover in September 2016. This occurred while they were working on restoring the power supply to a furnace.

Handle with care. Forklift deaths land firms with £1m fines.

Two visiting delivery drivers have died in avoidable forklift truck accidents, resulting in seven figure fines for a major plastic piping company and a large kitchen manufacturer.

How do I get a Health and Safety Certificate?

That’s a question health and safety professionals and educators are often asked. But one with no easy answer, because there are a variety of different courses and qualifications for different purposes and candidates. So here’s a much more interesting question, leading to a much more useful answer.

What is working at height, and how can the risks be minimised?

Common-sense says that ‘working at height’ means being anywhere off the ground when performing a task. The Health and Safety Executive definition extends that idea with this definition: "Work in any place where, if precautions were not taken, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury. You are working at height if you:

• work above ground/floor level
• could fall from an edge, through an opening or fragile surface or
• could fall from ground level into an opening in a floor or a hole in the ground."

In short, if there’s somewhere lower and a chance of injuring yourself by falling there, you’re working at height.

How to become a Health & Safety Inspector

Become a health and safety inspector and you are most likely to be working for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), although there are also opportunities to work as an inspector for local authorities and large organisations.

How long is a NEBOSH certificate valid for?

Once you have successfully completed all the units of a NEBOSH qualification, it will never expire. There is no need to retake the exams after a certain period. BUT (and this is one of the biggest buts you’ll ever see)…

What is the pass mark for the NEBOSH General Certificate, and what else do I need to know?

If you are setting out on a career in health and safety, the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety is an excellent first step. However, anyone with responsibility for safe working environments and employee well being can also benefit from the course.

What is HAVS?

Hand-arm Vibration Syndrome is a medical condition caused by frequent use of vibrating tools over an extended period of time – ten years or more in most cases. An estimated 1 in 10 people who use such tools eventually develop HAVS.

How to become a qualified First Aider

The UK needs a lot of first aiders. By law every organisation has to have someone responsible for first aid in the workplace; an ‘appointed person’ in the words of the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981. So what needs to happen If you are that person?