Editor's notes

Attending this year's Health and Safety Scotland exhibition, which took place at the SEC Glasgow on the 12-13 September, was a fantastic opportunity to find out more about this exciting industry. I had the chance to sit in on some really enlightening seminars, saw some fantastic products and also enjoyed the opportunity to meet some of our lovely readers.

Our next exhibition, Health and Safety North, takes place at Manchester's EventCity from the 9-10 October, and if you have not already planned to go, I suggest you reschedule your diary as it is an unmissable event for anyone responsible for health and safety at work.

The show’s educational partner, the British Safety Council (BSC) will deliver this year’s conference content with 36 hours of CPD accredited sessions lead by 56 outstanding speakers offering valuable and insightful seminar sessions that cover the most important areas challenging the industry. You can find out more about the event by reading the show preview in this issue, and you can register for FREE at www.healthandsafetyevents.co.uk/north

Hopefully, you’ll notice some changes we’ve made to HSM starting from inside this issue. To accompany our regular news pages we’ve also put more emphasis on prosecutions and introduced columnists who are very experienced in the sector and full of opinions. We also now have a number of substantial technical articles, which include topics on the importance of identifying and understanding the hazards on your worksite and choosing the right hard hat for the job, so make sure you read our head protection article.

Injuries occur in logistics, manufacturing and warehousing operations every year when operators are mounting and dismounting lift trucks and other warehouse equipment, so we find out what steps employers and forklift operators can take to help reduce the risk of injury.

SHE Awards 2019

After the success of the inaugural Safety and Health Excellence Awards I’m pleased to announce that entries for the 2019 Awards will open on 8 October. We will once again have categories on health and safety manager of the year, health and safety team of the year, rising star, best innovation in fire, best innovation in security and campaign of the year. But this year we will also have brand new categories on best health and safety in construction, best health and safety in manufacturing, best health and safety project and a special category in memory of 3M's Alan McArthur to recognised an unsung hero. 

This is the perfect way to recognise your team, an individual in your business or your product/campaign that has made a real difference to protecting people or premises. Last year we had more than 150 entries and culminated with a gala dinner attended by over 420 of your industry peers. This year’s Awards will take place on 10 April at Vox, Resorts World Birmingham and be hosted by popular comedian Sean Lock.

Please do take the time to enter as there are plenty of you who deserve to be recognised for the outstanding job you do at helping to keep us safe. The entry process is open until 31 January 2019 and you can see full criteria and enter online at www.she-awards.co.uk 

I am looking forward to seeing many of you at Health and Safety North, but if you wish to contact me to discuss any of the articles in this issue, or if you wish to include an article in a future issue, then please do not hesitate to contact me at krose@western-be.co.uk.

Kelly Rose

Editor, Health and Safety Matters