Main contractors seem really fussy these days.
What kind of PPE?
Some of it does more harm than good in my opinion. Safety goggles make sense if you're welding, but otherwise they're not very good for peripheral vision, particularly on a busy site.
Same with ear defenders - could stop you from hearing a vehicle reversing for example.
I think insisting on that kind of thin is over the top on some sites.
PPE is a statutory requirement albeit I do think in some cases, management do appear to prefer the overkill approach in lieu of common sense.
The statutory requirement re the wearing of Hard Hats came about back in 1983, it's amazing that that's still a problem with some folk.
Regards
MVM
PPE rules may seem draconian at times, but studies have shown that accidents are reduced when these rules are adhered to.
Until recently, you didn't see many workers wearing gloves on site. But after the Major Contractors Group brought in rules on this, there were a marked reduction in hand injuries on their sites.
They also took the view that by eliminating these smaller injuries, and adopting a zero tolerance policy on any form of accident, the bigger injuries don't tend to happen as much easier.
There's also the man management aspect. It's easier to drum in the message that all forms of PPE are mandatory at all times - than to allow people to think it's optional in certain circumstances.
Ah, so what your saying is it's better for corporate backs to be covered instead of doing a proper risk assessment to find exactly what PPE is necessary.
Don't get me wrong - i think H&S is really important, who wouldn't?! At the end of the day though, whats the point in imposing every form of PPE for every situation if it's not always needed and as Frank says, can sometimes be more of a problem than a help.
BladesBloke:whats the point in imposing every form of PPE for every situation if it's not always needed and as Frank says, can sometimes be more of a problem than a help.
Unfortunately, health and safety has a nasty habit of biting you on the backside when you least expect it.
What may appear to be the safest, most orderly of sites, where no eye protection might seem to be necessary, can throw up the most unexpected of hazards. On a windy day for example, dust can be a serious hazard for the eyes. You may laugh, but I know of somebody who got grit in his eye in exactly those circumstances, dismissed it as just something that would sort itself out, and a few weeks later he lost the use of that eye. Permanently.
And are modern safety goggles really so bad that they affect peripheral vision?
The phrase 'better safe than sorry' is overused, but it is always valid.
Have you any proof that all this overkill of health and safety has made improvements. There would appear to be more deaths and serious accidents now than ever.
What happened to common sense? The only people that seem to be complying with all this health and safety crap are the British. Anywhere I have been
in Europe we are the only country to be taking any notice of any of the safety rules. I feel sure that the suppliers of all the safety gear have got a finger in
the government. We now need 2 vans to be able to carry out our work. One for tools and one for the safety equipment.Why don't all the health and safety
wasters get a proper job. John O'Malley
suparod: Have you any proof that all this overkill of health and safety has made improvements. There would appear to be more deaths and serious accidents now than ever.
Generally yes. On Major Contractors Group sites, Accident Incidence Rates dropped by 45% between 2007 and 2001. Fatalities dropped from 15 to 2.
For the whole of construction, the general trend is that deaths and accidents are falling. In 2007/08 there were 72 deaths, down from 77, which was actually quite a big jump on the previous year. But at the start of the decade over 100 people were killed annually by construction. And this downward trend has been at a time of record work levels.
So I think the MCG policies deserve some credit for making the industry safer.
Against that, construction is still responsible for a third of all workplace deaths so there remains work to be done.
From a management point of view, mandatory PPE means that it will be in place. If only to be used in certain conditions (ie when it is needed), people have a nasty tendancy "not to bother". Therefore, if you are tasked with maintaining sfaety standards, making PPE mandatory means it will be in place, rather than having to constantly remind / chastise / discipline when it is not used.
From a slightly obscure angle, of course construction makes up a third of workplace deaths. Since our main "industries" are now shopping and finance, unless people are going to impale themselves with clothes-hangers or drink a litre of the office tippex, construction will always have a higher proportion of major injuries and fatalities than it's share of GDP (c.10%). (Still might be a good idea to reduce numbers though)
If you all enjoy living in apolice state then this is obviously the country for you. Labour has brought in more laws than any past government and are still doing.
I thought we were born free and lived in a free country. Shows how wrong I was. When the H&S have worn out one law they start another.
A lot of our work tends to be domestic heating.
We were taken over a couple of years ago by a big national contractor and they tried to impose their health and safety policies on us.
Trying to get blokes who were fixing a granny's boiler to wear hi vis jackets and hard hats !!!
As I wrote to a large contractor last week (some are born with common sense and some not) Those that have no common sense end up as safety officers
or site agents
Tommy79:A lot of our work tends to be domestic heating. We were taken over a couple of years ago by a big national contractor and they tried to impose their health and safety policies on us.Trying to get blokes who were fixing a granny's boiler to wear hi vis jackets and hard hats !!!
Now that is a prime example of H&S gone mad
suparod: As I wrote to a large contractor last week (some are born with common sense and some not) Those that have no common sense end up as safety officers or site agents
A rather sweeping statement there 'rod!!!
Some of the examples mentioned are silly i agree. I personally have a problem with mandatory saftey specs that affect my distance judgement when looking through them- when working on scaffold at height and having to think about where hands are feet are is clearly more dangerous than without. In my opinion PPE should be worn or used to reduce the risk of injury for the operation of work and should not be applied carte blanche to everyone, since it become meaningless, expensive and difficult to manage. Unfortunately to some H&S managers, common sense does not prevail - only adherance to the rules.
However, where a sensibly written risk assessment states that PPE should be worn.... then it should be worn and unfortuantely again some people think that a method statement is just a document to sign after the induction and nothing more. Is it perhaps these idividuals who may then be involved in accidents who are the cause of the silly rules in the first place?
From a site agent.
I have just read through all the posts on this page and the problem is that to a degree they are all correct.
One of the problems here with PPE regs is bad paperwork, if the method statements and risk assesments are done correctly then they should say what PPE is required for what job and more importantly the coorect type of items such as the correct glasses to wear for which job and the correct gloves etc.
I aggree with the hard hat issues , a lot of jobs dont particualy require one that needs to be at the discretion of the site manager, but they are so often frightened of upsetting the H/S manager they just enforce it anyway, as for a hi-vis there are a lot of jobs where they are a must, but if you are working say on , painting the walls insde a new house,,, a vis comes in handy,,, for cleaning paint brushes,,,,,,as a Senior Project Manager i have to lay some blame at the site managers and agents ,,,why ,,,simple ,,,i would not send you with a twenty pound sledge hammer to knock in a 4 inch nail,,,,so why do a lot of senior staff send low impact glasses on a high impact operation.
Someone somewhere needs to accept the responsiabilitiy for making sure that the staff dont wear every peice of PPE ever invented but they do waer the ones required to keep them safe in the function they are required for ,,, right tool right job .
Your paper work for each process of work should tell those doing the work what they need and what type they need , not please put on twenty layers of everything , sweat like a pig , de-hydrate and pass out , but at least someone can claim that by using everthing including the condome you where safe...
I think not,,, the motto here is simple ,,the RIGHT equipment will HELP keep you safe ,, too much of ,or the WRONG equipment will NOT help you in anyway shape or form
Forced to be political , cos someone killed practical LONG LIVE PRACTICAL
Do you honestly belive that the wearing of hard hard hats (or PPE in general!) should be at the discression of the site agent? Does that mean that the responsibility, and accountability for any accidents that happen (and dare i say coould have been prevented?) should lie with the Site Agent too? Would you really be comfortable taking responsibility for assessing which PPE is to be worn? And being held accountable for any protection failiures? I certainly wouldnt.
In very simple terms and in many cases yes.
I am expected to make a detailed account of the PPE required for a job on the works package plan and risk assessments etc for the work. If i screw up on this i am accountable. I have a duty to brief the staff on the correct PPE required for the job. if i screw up here i am accountable. I am expected to enforce on site that the correct PPE is constantly worn as it required whislt staff are performing there duties, if i screw up here i am accountable. Thre is a pattern here of the fact that i am accountable.
At no point in the previous writing did i ever use the words ,,, or PPE in general ,,,, I find it very offensive that this has been added, it has been clearly stated that this is about the right PPE not the fact that it is not worth wareing, i clearly stated that as the site management we already have to make these decisions.
I.E. if i instructed on a package plan that a man was to wear gloves when working on a project that was within the perammeters of a 700 volt live rail and he was electrocuted on the rail or an attachement i have failed to ensure all was done to keep him safe...i should have instructed him to wear 1000 volt retardent gloves. The wrong PPE will not save a life or prevent an accident.
I.E man uses concrete breaker on the package plan it states he has to wear safety glasses, splinter hits glasses goes into eye , man who wrote package plan is sued . Why ? simple package plans etc should have told the staff to use the correct high impact glasses, not just safety glassess are to be worn.
I am expected to be accountable for ensureing i did all that i could to ensure the prevention of accidents , PPE is a prevention not a cure , the wrong PPE or ill informed staff giving ill informed workforce any old PPE is neither a prevention or a cure. Practical safety and education are.
A man is inside an enclosed building working on his own painting the inside of a new house,,,, an empty house ,,, the man is told he must wear his hard hat and his vis ...why,,,, when he trips over his paint tin neither will save his leg from being broken, as long as he wears the correct PPE when leaving the confines of his worksite then all is good the rest is down to eduaction.
The fact is the site management team are the ones that are accountable as long as we are seen to have done all we can we are safe,,, this is laughable...
Practicle safety , making the right decisions and education have kept my sites safe for over 26 years not the political safety ordered by someone who flies a desk saying you can not do that because i say so. The way to prevent accidents is to have an educated management team , educating site staff making sure the right PPE is used for the right work , thats when PPE saves lives.
What this industry needs is a better education for its staff all staff. This includes the use of the correct PPE and why you must use it. This will help prevent accidents and help the site management in the stakes of accountability. We need to go back to education and common sence but we are not allowed to teach this anymore, the toolbox talks are just joke on there own they need to be backed up, but they usualy are not.
Point in Refferance : every one tells people to wear anti vibe gloves when using a concrete breaker for the prevention of hand arm vibration sickness, how many poeple do you know that back this up by educating staff that leaning on a breaker will do the same thing to your testies as it does to your hands, i would not think that boiled b*****ks is very nice myself , so all my staff are educated in this.
I will go now as i have cramp, but i will say this my company motto IF IT ANIT SAFE , DONT DO IT,,,,,,RIGHT TOOLS , RIGHT JOB , RIGHT STAFF OR UNSAFE AND UNEMPLOYED THE CHOICE IS YOURS.
Like I have said before. This is so like a police state now. We are not allowed to think for ourselves any longer. When are the people in authority going to admit
that H/S is ruining this country. No-one in government will say anything as they are too busy fiddling expenses. As it is now very obvious how crooked most
M.Ps are how do we know that they haven't been paid to push through a lot of this crap. If it bothers the people that are enforcing these rules,may I suggest
they jack it in. Get aq worthwhile job and let us workers get on with ours. I am in my 60s and have been involved with the construction industry most my working
life and have yet to have an accident. Suparod
Yep -you've nailed that one!
The problem the industry has is that far too often sensible H&S messages like yours are often confused by the idocy and american style claims culture of banning rigger boots, wearing mandatory (cheap) safety specs even when working and height that distort your vision and the list goes on... these "rules" which are not based on suitable and sufficient RA's become sensationalised by the workforce and give H&S a bad name...Even being compared with MP's! My suggestion is to make H&S practical again because the balance has swung too far, the effect of which is that people/ operatives ignore the use of PPE because they're not sure if it will actually protect them or is just another pointless "rule" to keep somebody in a job. My experience shows that H&S managers who have worked in the industry for some tend to acheive the best results because they are practical, can relate to people and have an understanding of building operations. I guess the "rules" are made by others.
suparod: Like I have said before. This is so like a police state now. We are not allowed to think for ourselves any longer.
Like I have said before. This is so like a police state now. We are not allowed to think for ourselves any longer.
Spot on.
It's all very well for the H&S bods to sit behind their desks saying "wear this, wear that" but when it comes to physically doing the job, most of the time the ppe gets in the way.
Boots - Fair enough.
Hard hats - Yeah, when walking around site, or in a place where something could fall on your head. But some of the sites we will work on will be on top of a roof, with no one else anywhere near you (usually the only ones up there) where the only possibility of a head injury is from a low flying aircraft or a pigeon.
Glasses / goggles - yep, when you're drilling or something, fair enough, but walking around site?? It's no different from walking down the street.
Gloves - If you need them, wear them.
Hi-Vis - Yep, no problems there.
I'd like to get some of the people who write these rules on site with me for a day and see how much fitting work (nuts and bolts sort of stuff) they can do with goggle, gloves and a hard hat that gets in the way.
Now i am not going to say that i agree with all that you have writen but the priciple is right There are times when you dont need it but have to use it, now look at the last bit and ask your self is it safe to use hand tools wearing gloves on a dry day let alone a wet day, plus we still have the issues i have raised over the use of the incorrect PPE which can be more dangerouse than no PPE.
Case in point ; man loses eye after having ruddy great lump of plastic in it after low impact glasses get shattered form concrete particle, glasses issued to him by site manager. ,,,,,FACT man should have worn high impact glasses. FACT man trusted the other man to issue correct glasses,,,FACT they were both wrong. This just goes to prove the point i made CORRECT PPE = GOOD,,,,,,,WRONG PPE = DANGEROUSE . My message to all is in general ppe is a good thing but please all check the method statements and risk assesments if the correct ppe is not listed ask the agent what is required as the words lgoves and glasses is not good enough.