Summer Safety and Wellbeing

Summer is finally here, and it is that time of year when we start looking at recharging our batteries. There are also a lot of Health and Safety events happening within the Construction Industry at the moment, so it is a busy time for everyone.

This may well mean that key staff are away so the burden for health and safety falls on a limited number of personnel. ?Make sure your business is covered and that you have processes in place for your employees to follow. Perhaps, before holidays are in full swing, carry out some refresher training so all team members are up to date – you may even identify some gaps in knowledge that need filling!

Holidays are key to ensuring staff run ‘at their best’ allowing them to come back to work refreshed and ready to go. Personal wellbeing is also important, so, creating an environment that actively promotes a state of contentment, benefiting both employees and your organisation is a must.

Investing in employee wellbeing can lead to increased resilience, better employee engagement, reduced sickness absence and higher performance and productivity. You could even consider encouraging regular social events to enhance morale and boost teamwork. The aim is to ensure that the business continues to run effectively and safely no matter who is on leave.

What’s happening at Ai Solutions?

As always, the team at Ai Solutions look to utilise the latest technologies in the development of our software. The benefits of Cloud computing means that the software has more scalability and flexibility. Along with this, we can take the opportunity to utilise advanced security in our new system. This Cloud technology supports better data protection and provides cost and resource savings. All of this we will pass onto our customers.

One of the biggest advantages with this type of Cloud technology is that it allows you to work anywhere, anytime, and, on any device!

We want our customers to have everything at their fingertips and still stay compliant with the CDM Regulations. If you would like to know more about CDM ToolKit CS Cloud, then please give a member of the team a call on 01525 850343 to arrange your free demo with them.

Health and Safety News

5-Year High on Railway Track Issues

For those of you who have recently suffered trouble with trains, and getting to work, we understand that there were 938 separate rail issues in 2023 subsequently affecting a record of 1300 trains. Additionally, the Sun reported that 10,000 services were cancelled, and 7,000 hours of delays were experienced by passengers. For more on this story visit Health and Safety in Construction.

VOR and BSR Strategic Objectives

Under section 8 of the Building Safety Act, BSR requires that we make arrangements for a Voluntary Occurrence Reporting (VOR) system to facilitate the giving of building safety information. VOR should enable the industry to learn lessons and develop solutions. Along with this, the HSE recommends it should help prevent recurrence of incidents, as well as facilitating improvements in competence. It is hoped that this will encourage culture change (shared responsibility) and inform future policy decisions. For more on this, visit the HSE strategic plan.

Workers Leg Amputated

An employee has had to have his leg amputated after trapping it in a mushroom filling machine. The 29-year-old man, along with 2 other colleagues were brought in to clean the machine when his leg was caught by the rotating blades in the mixing axle. According to the HSE (Health and Safety Executive), Howden Enterprises Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The company was fined ￡73,333 and ordered to pay ￡7,522.60 in costs at Hull and Holderness Magistrates Court.

Enva Unveils Plans for New Healthcare Risk Waste facility

Recycling and resource recovery specialist, Enva, has unveiled plans for a new Healthcare Risk Waste facility in Dublin, Ireland. The announcement follows the commencement of the planning process with ‘An Bord Pleanála’, an independent body with responsibility for determining applications. For more on this story visit FMJ/UK

Fatality at Work

An employee has been crushed to death after a mixer wagon fell onto him at Bankend Quarry. The 52-year-old man was replacing the two front wheels of the vehicle when it fell on him. The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) found that Booth Mixer Hire Limited failed to carry out an appropriate risk assessment which ultimately led to the worker’s death. Booth Mixer Hire Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The company was fined ￡50,000 and ordered to pay ￡16,717.15 in costs at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court.

Working Against the Clock

A recent survey ‘Working Against The Clock’ has identified the detrimental effects of night-time working on the health, wellbeing, and social inclusion of workers. There were safety concerns as well as social and family-life’ conflicts which have a negative impact on their relationships with their children and partners. Further information available on Adverse Effects FMJ.

BSR Strategic Plan

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) strategic plan was published in November 2023. Its three main functions are:

• To keep the safety & standards of ALL buildings under review
• Promote competence of industry professionals and regulations working on ALL buildings
• Lead the delivery of the new, more stringent regulatory regime for buildings currently in scope – Higher Risk Buildings (HRBs)

For those of you that have a large property portfolio, it is an opportunity to ensure your buildings are in line with the strategic plan. This includes the change to ‘all’ buildings over 11 meters in height. For more on this, visit the HSE website.

Customer Comment

Each month we ask one of our customer representatives to share their experiences with our software, our services or training with our readers.

This month’s offering comes from Rowland Gordon who is Highway Operations Manager at the London Borough of Croydon.

“At Croydon Council, we use CDM ToolKit to ensure we comply with our duties under the CDM regulations and manage our projects from the pre-construction phase to the retention of the final health and safety files at the end of the projects.“

“The software is easy to use and allows easy collaboration with our designers, contractors, and other interested parties.“

“At Croydon Council, we use CDM ToolKit to ensure we comply with our duties under the CDM regulations and manage our projects from the pre-construction phase to the retention of the final health and safety files at the end of the projects.”

“The software is easy to use and allows easy collaboration with our designers, contractors, and other interested parties.“

“The system provides an audit trail of what actions were taken throughout the lifecycle of the project, and an attribute I particularly like, is the fact that I can go to a road where previous work had taken place and find all the relevant risks and issues identified as part of the previous projects. This then provides me with a wealth of information on potential risks I may encounter as part of the new project I may be putting forward.”