What's in a name?

The overriding reaction to news that Lord Young is going ahead with a review into health & safety (full story page12) has been that it's time to make a distinction between: the pursuit to protect people and prevent death and injury; and the kind of petty bureaucracy that gives this pursuit a bad name.

As HSE Chair Judith Hackitt said in a letter to Lord Young, “Often health and safety is invoked to disguise someone's real motives - concerns over costs or complexity, or an unwillingness to honestly defend an unpopular decision.” It seems no other countries roll their eyes in quite the same way as the British do about health and safety which could well be because in many countries there is no such thing. Of course there are issues such as the “security of the workforce” and “worker protection” but there isn't this convenient catch-all that lends itself so easily to being abused.

So, part of the challenge for Lord Young may be simply one of semantics. This distinction is vital because arguably the task of preventing death and injury at work is becoming more challenging than ever. The BP Deepwater Horizon incident on the Gulf of Mexico has not only demonstrated the cataclysmic consequences of getting safety wrong but also illustrates the dangerous lengths we are willing to go to in our quest to meet our energy needs; an urgent quest which is characterised by high risk activities such as nuclear generation, coal mining and onshore shale gas exploration. In relation to the scale of our ambition in these areas our experience and expertise are strained. The truth is we must be better at safety than we have ever been before.

Also within this issue of HSM we take an indepth look at Construction Site Safety. As we move out of the recession and construction picks up, Philip White, chief inspector of construction for the HSE reminds us (page 10) that we will see renewed safety challenges in this sector as many new people join the industry. White urges:

“Firms need to make sure all workers, but particularly those that are new and inexperienced, have the correct safety training. We routinely see workers suffer horrific injuries in their first week on the job, and the fact that these injuries are preventable makes them all the more devastating.”

On a slightly lighter note on page 16 Jim Byard of Weightmans LLP takes on the controversial issue of the vuvuzela. Should FIFA have given the African horn the red card or is it all part of the World Cup atmosphere? If you are lucky enough to be there, answers on a post card please.

Georgina Bisby
Editor, Health & Safety Matters
gbisby@western-bp.co.uk