Building knowledge and developing confidence

Ahead of the northern leg of the Heath & Safety ’10 series,Neal Stone takes a look at some of the health &
safety issues faced by organisations in this region and explains what visitors to the Bolton show can expect
to gain from this year’s seminar programme

The British Safety Council is
looking forward to continuing its
role as education partner to
Western Business Exhibitions at Health
& Safety ’10 Bolton. The seminar
programme put together for Bolton
reflects many of the major issues that
those involved in preventing workplace
injury and ill-health are grappling with.

Health & safety and those involved in the
management of health & safety are very
much under the spotlight at present.

Come the exhibition we should know the
outcome of Lord Young’s review of health
& safety and compensation. This review
reflects government and society’s
concerns surrounding the impact of
health & safety both on the management
of risk in the workplace and on society
more generally.

The accusation is frequently made that
health & safety and its practitioners
should shoulder the blame for a society
that is increasingly risk averse. The
benefits that well-managed health & safety
brings ? preventing the huge financial and
human cost of injury and ill-health – are
often overlooked by critics keen to focus
on silly stories that tend to concentrate on
the consequences of risk aversion and
unnecessary bureaucracy. Speakers
featuring in the Bolton seminar
programme will be addressing the
important issues not the trivial.

The task of preventing injury and ill
health in workplaces across the north west
region must be the top priority for the
regulator, employers, workers and all of
those involved in health and safety. The
reality is that a considerable number of
workers are still being made ill or injured
through work-related activities. The
injury and ill-health statistics produced by
HSE for the north west region paint a
worrying picture. In 2008/09 there were
22 fatal injuries, 3,281 reported major
injuries and 12,901 over 3 day injuries.

One third of fatal injuries were caused by
falls from heights. Another third of major
injuries to workers were caused by slips,
trips and falls. In the north west the
construction sector had the highest
incidence of fatal and major injuries.

The incidence and occurrence of workrelated
ill-health in the north west region
also gives cause for serious concern. It is
estimated that 3.5 million working days
were lost in the region in 2008/09 due to
workplace injuries and ill-health ? slightly
above the national average. The vast
majority of days lost were caused by illhealth
such as stress and musculo skeletal
disorders.

Criminal prosecutions
HSE reported two cases in the north west
region on the same day in early
September where fatal accidents had
resulted in criminal prosecutions. Fines
totalling ?30,000 were imposed on
building and demolition contractors
following the death of a Salford worker,
who was struck by the excavator bucket
on a digger. John Cain, 36, who was
working on a project to demolish a
building in Salford in November 2004,
died from his injuries later that day. The
case took six years to come to court.

The UK’s biggest food manufacturer
was fined fined ?14,000 after a 65kg metal
pillar fell on a maintenance engineer at a
site on the Wirral, Merseyside, in 2008,
crushing his skull. Thomas Williams, aged
61, suffered severe traumatic brain and
spinal injuries, and was in hospital for
more than six months. He now has
difficulty speaking and moving. These two
tragic cases highlight the human cost of
badly managed health & safety and the
criminal consequences of breaking the
law.

It is with such cases in mind, along
with the feedback provided by those
attending last year’s event, that the issues
and speakers for the eight educational
seminars for the 2010 programme have
been selected. Consequently the event
provides the ideal opportunity for those
attending to build knowledge and develop
competence year-on-year.

The number of people attending the
eight seminars at the ’09 Bolton
Exhibition ? over 3,000 ? strongly
reflected the quality of the speakers and
the importance of the issues they
addressed. The British Safety Council will
be striving to maintain and build on those
high standards achieved last year.

The speakers we have won’t shy away
from some of the difficult and complex
health & safety issues employers and
workers in the north west are facing. Our
speakers will give practical advice on how
better to manage risks to workplace health
and safety, identify the vital building
blocks as leadership and workforce
involvement vital to preventing injury and
ill-health and update those attending on
key legal developments. Those attending
will have plenty of opportunities to
engage with and question the speakers. It
is a must attend event.

Neal Stone is head of Policy and Public
Affairs at the British Safety Council.
Dressed to protect