Health and Safety Courses

Imagine you’re an alien, new to Planet Earth and visiting a construction site for the first time. One of the first things you’ll notice is the overwhelming emphasis on health and safety. Signs and notices on the subject come at you from all angles. Hi-vis clothing and hard hats are everywhere. But who’s in charge of all this health and safety activity? And how do courses and qualifications such as SSSTS (the Site Supervisors Safety Training Scheme) and SMSTS (the Site Management Safety Training Scheme) fit into the big picture?

All employers have a legal duty to protect their employees from injury caused by manual handling tasks. It’s a key aspect of their general responsibilities for health and safety in the workplace.

The meaning of health and safety in the workplace may seem too obvious to need explaining, but when it comes to health and safety, with all its legal ramifications, things are rarely as simple as they seem.

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.

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.

If you are an employer or in control of premises, you have duties to control risks from work activities related to Legionella under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations.

Treatment of Legionnaires’ disease is by antibiotics, and early recognition and treatment are important for survival. The symptoms vary, depending on whether it is mild or severe.

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An investigation by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) interviewed the survivors and carried out microscopic autopsies.

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