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Blog / Archives
HSE charging for inspectors’ time! Are YOU Health and Safety Compliant?
Well the good news is that the charges which were to be introduced next month, have now been put back, but the bad news is that they've only been put back for 6 months and charging will probably start in October this year! However this gives you a great chance to get your health and safety up-to-date and fully compliant.
What the HSE intend to do is recover costs for the time and effort spent on companies who break health and safety laws, charging £124 for every hour they spend investigating and taking enforcing action. But they ONLY intend to apply the charge IF the company is found to be breaking health and safety laws. If a company is investigated and found to be compliant, there will be no charge for the investigation.
See Health and Safety Executive 'New date for health and safety cost recovery scheme'.
How many Fire Wardens do we need
There isnt an exact answer to this, it largely depends on the size and layout of your premises. Throughout our experience of talking with thousands of organisations the general rule of thumb is 1 Fire Warden for every 10 members of staff. It is then sensible for each Fire Warden to have a deputy in case of absence.
Completing a Fire Risk Assessment will point out exactly how many Wardens you need. It makes sense to ensure you have ample cover.
If you want to train quite a few Wardens you have several options:
- Online training - which we provide.
- Hands on - there are several good companies that will come to your premises and train your staff.
- Fire and Rescue Service - Quite a few Fire Brigades carry out training.
We feel that online is more convenient and cost effective and are happy to offer free trials.
Slips, trips and falls at work - they’re all down to YOU (or me)!
It’s a fact that slips, trips and falls at work are nearly always due to you, or to me or to a colleague! Yes, if you think about it – it’s usually because someone has put something down where they shouldn’t, or left a spill instead of mopping it up, or is rushing, doing two things at once, or simply not concentrating! Even when a slip or trip is due to poorly fitting or inadequate flooring or some other danger in the workplace, someone should have reported as a problem and made sure clear signs highlight the danger.
But the fact that it’s a human problem means that help is at hand with some simple training from The Interactive Health and Safety Company!
Our slips, trips and falls training programme...
Staff Fire Awareness and how it benefits your workplace
Fire awareness is something that benefits everyone, not just at work but anywhere – it’s a life skill. It doesn’t just mean knowing what to do in a fire, but also includes recognising what could cause a fire, understanding how it spreads and knowing what to do to eliminate or at least reduce the dangers. At work fire prevention and fire safety includes putting in place safeguards and ensuring that everyone knows the proper procedure to follow in the case of a fire to avoid panic. And, if a company has five or more staff it’s the law that all staff MUST have fire awareness training.
So, do you know what to do if the fire alarm goes off at work? Do you know where to evacuate to? And do you know who to ask?
Someone has to be ready to take charge! There should be a fire warden or fire marshal in each work area or one for approximately every five members of staff. It is often the case that when the fire alarm goes off, you can’t actually see any sign of a fire, so you sit and wait for confirmation of the fact it’s not just a fire drill. Whether its a fire drill or the real thing you should be calmly getting up and leaving via the safest route. It's in these precious moments of inactivity that you lose vital time – it only takes a few minutes for a fire to take hold. A fire marshal or warden is often essential to direct staff to act. They are chosen by a company owner or manager as competent people and their responsibilities include staff fire training, running regular fire drills, ensuring fire exit signs are properly placed and exit routes are clear and keeping everyone updated on fire policy and procedure.
What should be included in fire safety training?
- A little bit of science is useful for background – how fires start, how they keep going, and how they spread and why. And it’s useful to recognise in your particular workplace what the common fire hazards are.
- Workplace essentials – you should know where YOUR best fire exit is and where the alternatives are, in case a fire blocks your normal escape route. Have a look round - are the fire exits clearly signed, with routes well-lit and not blocked? Fire drills should be regularly run, so you should be aware of how to evacuate calmly and you should know where your assembly point is.
- What to do if there is a fire – you should know NEVER to put yourself in danger, how to raise the alarm and how to evacuate safely.
- You should know the fire policies and fire procedures your company has in place and who your nearest fire warden is.
Fire awareness training can be done however it best suits a company – sending staff out to a group training course ensures that everyone is trained in one go - you know that it’s been done and when, but it can be extremely costly and mean a loss of productivity with a group of staff absent together. Similarly group in-house training will almost certainly mean great expense and a proportion of staff missing all at the same time. A good alternative is to provide the training via computer. This has the benefit of being able to be completed when it suits you and your staff and of course each member of staff can complete the training at different times, avoiding the general loss of productivity. And no one ever misses the training when it’s done via computer!
Training from The Interactive Health and Safety Company (iHasco) is computer-based training and can be completed either ONLINE or through the use of CD-ROMs. The training is the same whichever you choose. It is perfect in-house, at-your-desk training and is reasonably priced. It is now being used in over 10,000 companies with 214,063 unique training sessions recorded – the main page of the website keeps an up-to-date count of training sessions. Current Fire Safety titles are Fire Awareness in the Workplace which is training for ALL staff and takes around 45 minutes to complete, and Fire Warden Training – designed specifically for fire wardens and fire marshals this course is an in-depth training programme taking around 90 minutes to complete. The Fire Warden training course includes a very illuminating section on human behaviour patterns when a fire alarm sounds! Both courses are available for free trial. For more information call 0800 612 7088.
This article was written by Sarah Cushenan.
Email : SJC@ihasco.co.uk