25 Mar March

March News

Prime Minister announces four-step roadmap to ease restrictions across England.

The Government has Government published a four-step roadmap to ease restrictions across England and provide a route back to a more normal way of life.

Addressing the nation in a Downing Street Press Conference on Tuesday 23 February, PM Boris Johnson said that each step will be assessed against four tests before restrictions ease, starting with the return of schools on 8 March.

The PM emphasized that decision on each stage will be based on ‘data not dates’, and that the Government will move cautiously to
keep infection rates under control.

This assessment will be based on four tests:

• The vaccine deployment programme continues successfully.
• Evidence shows vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths in those vaccinated.
• Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS.
• The assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by new Variants of Concern.

Mr Johnson also discussed the latest vaccine efficacy data, with Public Health England finding that one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reduces hospitalisations and deaths by at least 75%. Analysis of the AstraZeneca vaccine efficacy continues, with promising early results.

Step 1, 8 March

Getting children back into school remains the top priority, according to the PM, and so from 8 March all children and students will return to face to face education in schools and college. By this point, everyone in the top four vaccine priority cohorts – as determined by the independent JCVI – will have received the first dose of their vaccine and developed the necessary protection from it.

Also from this date:

• Wraparound childcare and other supervised children’s activities can resume where they enable parents to work, seek work, attend education, seek medical care or attend a support group;
• Care home residents will be allowed one regular visitor provided they are tested and wear PPE;
• The Stay at Home requirement will remain, but people can leave home for recreation outdoors such as a coffee or picnic with their household or support bubble, or with one person outside their household;
• Some university students on practical courses will be able to return
  to face to face learning.

As part of step one, there will be further limited changes from 29 March, the week in which most schools will break up for Easter. Outdoor gatherings of either six people or two households will be allowed, providing greater flexibility for families to see each other. This includes in private gardens.

Outdoor sports facilities, such as tennis and basketball courts, will be allowed to reopen, and people can take part in formally organised outdoor sports.

At this point, the Stay at Home order will end, although many lockdown restrictions will remain.

For example, you should continue to work from home where possible, and overseas travel remains banned, aside for a small number of reasons.

The subsequent steps are set out as follows:

Step 2, no earlier than 12 April

Non-essential retail, personal care premises, such as hairdressers and nail salons, and public buildings, such as libraries and community centres, will reopen;

• Most outdoor attractions and settings, including zoos, and theme parks, will also reopen although wider social contact rules will apply in these settings to prevent indoor mixing between
• different households. Drive-in cinemas and drive-in performances will also be permitted;
• Indoor leisure facilities, such as gyms and swimming pools, will also reopen – but only for use by people on their own or with their household;
• Hospitality venues can serve people outdoors only. There will be no need for customers to order a substantial meal with alcohol, and no curfew – although customers must order, eat and drink while seated;
• Self-contained accommodation, such as holiday lets, where indoor facilities are not shared with other households, can also reopen;
• Funerals can continue with up to 30 people, and the numbers able to attend weddings, receptions and commemorative events such as wakes will rise to 15 (from six).
• Free rapid tests for all businesses

Register to order free rapid lateral flow coronavirus tests for your employees
https://www.gov.uk/get-workplace-coronavirus-tests
This programme is hugely beneficial given that around 1 in 3 people
who are infected with COVID-19 have no symptoms so could be
spreading the disease without knowing it.
This will reduce the risk of transmission among those who cannot work
from home and ensure vital public and economic services can
continue.

Step 3, no earlier than 17 May

• Outdoors, most social contact rules will be lifted – although gatherings of over 30 people will remain illegal;
• Outdoor performances such as outdoor cinemas, outdoor theatres and outdoor cinemas can reopen.. Indoors, the rule of 6 or 2 households will apply – although we will keep under
  review whether it is safe to increase this;
• Indoor hospitality, entertainment venues such as cinemas and soft play areas, the rest of the accommodation sector, and indoor adult group sports and exercise classes will also
  reopen;
• Larger performances and sporting events in indoor venues with a capacity of 1,000 people or half-full (whichever is lower) will also be allowed, as will those in outdoor venues
  with a capacity of 4,000 people or half-full (whichever is lower);
• In the largest outdoor seated venues where crowds can spread out, up to 10,000 people will be able to attend (or a quarter-full, whichever is lower);
• Up to 30 people will be able to attend weddings, receptions and wakes, as well as funerals. Other life events that will be permitted include bar mitzvahs and christenings.

Step 4, no earlier than 21 June

• It is hoped all legal limits on social contact can be removed;
• Hope to reopen nightclubs, and lift restrictions on large events and performances that apply in Step 3;
• This will also guide decisions on whether all limits can be removed on weddings and other life events.

Staying mentally well

The Staying mentally well: winter plan 2020 to 2021 sets out the support that will be in place in the immediate term to help support individuals to stay well during the second wave of the coronavirus and winter months ahead.

While this plan applies to England only (as mental health is a devolved matter), it notes that mental health remains a UK-wide priority and all 4 nations are taking steps to address the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are continuing to collaborate across the UK, share learning and ensure all nations can benefit from new initiatives where possible.

The plan points out that as little as 30 minutes’ exposure to natural light per day can improve mental health and help maintain a healthy sleep pattern. As such, the government therefore recommend going outside at least once a day, preferably to a natural environment or green space such as a park, during daylight hours to maximise these benefits. Public Health England’s ‘Better Health’ campaign offers tips to move more and get active outside.

Wellbeing and work

Employers play a crucial role in ensuring employees are supported to take positive actions to improve wellbeing at work, says the plan. The ‘talking toolkit’ developed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is a useful resource to help employers both to have effective conversations with employees on how to prevent work-related stress and then use these discussions to inform tangible actions in the workplace (for example, complete a stress risk assessment).

As we move out of winter, guidance and best practice will be available to employers via the https://www.mentalhealthatwork.org.uk/

Can the spread of workplace illness be avoided, post-COVID, by increased remote working?

Experts say home working during lockdowns has shown that people should be encouraged to work remotely in the future, if they feel slightly under the weather, in order to stop the spread of illnesses.

A report in the Independent has highlighted that there has not been a single case of influenza detected by Public Health England so far in 2021.
Whilst perhaps it could be expected that with current lockdown restrictions influenza, which has an R rate of 1.3-1.5 compared to Sars-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – which has a basic R value of between 2.5-3.0, would not be as transmissible, it is a very dramatic decline.

Decreased social interaction, hand sanitiser and mask wearing have all contributed to the drop in influenza and the current coronavirus vaccine rollout has not impacted the estimated 15 million people who receive the flu jab every year. In fact, as Dr Vanessa Saliba, Head of Flu at PHE, told the Independent, “This season’s immunisation programme is on track to be the most successful ever, with the highest levels of vaccine uptake recorded for those 65 years and over, 2- and 3-year-olds and healthcare workers.”

But what does that mean moving forward?

Well, experts say that it shows that a virus that we once thought could not be stopped, can be severely halted. Clearly, we’re not going to go into a full lockdown every winter in order to try and stop the spread of flu, but what can be done?

In the report, Christina Pagel, a Professor of Operational Research at University College London, says that the findings do suggest that shops, workplaces and public spaces should continue to provide hand sanitiser stations and that people should be encouraged to continue to wear face masks in busy places, such as on public transport, during the winter months.

She also raised an interesting point about the British attitude to illness and work, highlighting people’s eagerness to go into work, even if they are sick. “We need to change that. We’ve shown that a lot of people can work remotely.”

Do you have a culture in place where you can encourage that mentality without it being abused. If not, how do you change that mentality and culture?
Many business have shown they can continue to operate remotely over the last 18 months, but if learnings from coronavirus can help us tackle other viruses by keeping our hands clean and limiting contact with others when sick, surely we must act upon that?

We would love to hear your thoughts on this

Human behaviour: Rule following and risk perception

Group Health and Safety Manager, Joe Smith, tries to get to the bottom of
why people do, or don’t, follow the rules and why it takes supervision or
disciplinary action before some toe the line and work safely all of the time.

My greatest challenge (and perhaps every other practitioner’s challenge) is getting people to follow rules. I get there in the end using he full toolbox of coaching, instructing, cajoling, bribing, disciplining. Whatever is appropriate for that person. But I’ve always struggled to understand why some people require varying levels of pressure beyond training and instruction. Some people only need told once and that’s it. Why do others need disciplinary action or only do it when the supervisor is around?

After much thought over the years my best theory is this; humans are constantly making calculations. It’s how we arrive at decisions. It’s most often an automatic process. The safety practitioner though, because of their training, work their professional decisions out in a prescribed, conscious and formulaic way:

Reasonable Practicality Quantum of risk V the cost in terms of time, effort and money

Reasonably practicable, a concept we’re all well aware of. Beyond that we’ll also use our experience to say “y’know it might not seem so dangerous but I’ve had to report over seven day accidents due to something quite innocuous. I’ve also known people breaking an ankle on a little knot of wood on the floor”. So sometimes it might seem to the layman to be a little over
zealous but quite often we might decide that it’s not worth the risk. In contrast some employees have a very different calculation. Their calculation is: Perceived risk (adverse outcome) vs Making their day as easy as possible. So you have the “safety instruction” on one hand and “ease/convenience” on the other. The perceived risk calculation will depend on:

• Their own estimation of the level of risk;
• Their level of conscientiousness;
• Their attitudes towards risk and previous experience (risk aversion);
• They will also factor in how likely they might be to get caught and the sanction for getting caught.

The ease/convenience will be calculated as below: It’s also more variable than the risk level and can change depending on:

• Their energy levels that day;
• Personal needs such as If they need the job done quickly because they need an early finish or want to ask for tomorrow off;
• How difficult or laborious they perceive the task to be.

If ease and convenience outweighs their perception of the risk then they are likely to opt for ignoring the instruction where they can get away with it. You might find people that you can generally rely on will cut corners too if the calculation swings towards a benefit for them. So that’s one reason why it can be difficult to get people to work safely all
the time. But it is rather simplistic. And some people may even be quite insulted by the implication that it boils down to “laziness”. I don’t think it is that simple either. The bigger issue within that calculation is the individual’s estimation of risk. The safety practitioner will calculate the level of risk by looking at both the likelihood AND severity of any potential accident. Many
people seem to focus on likelihood, which may indeed be low. Risk estimation You will be used to seeing the risk estimation chart below. It’s one method used to help in deciding appropriate control measures. It’s normally something like this but sometimes there’s 4 colour categories and people will score some areas differently.

I find it particularly difficult to change behaviours when the task is one you would consider a low likelihood, high severity risk. If you use a hammer every day and every day you hit your thumb. It’s not a life changing injury but pretty quickly you’ll get tired of doing it. You’ll then find a way around it. Perhaps a holding tool, or you’ll make a conscious effort to remember to keep your hand away from where you strike the hammer. If a person sees the adverse result pretty quickly then they’ll adjust their practices. Even with low severity outcomes.

In contrast if you drive a forklift with a load raised so that you can see better. Despite being told it’s wrong in your training and site SSOW, if it helps you to more quickly navigate through the yard you might do it. You may then go on to do it dozens, hundreds, thousands of times without hurting anyone. You may even have dropped the load once and smashed it. But for it to be a life changing incident you have to firstly lose the load which is a rare occurrence, and secondly there needs to be someone there in that exact place in the entire yard where you’ve just dropped that load. The statistical chance is quite low. A person is highly likely to go an entire career without injuring anyone in spite of the unsafe practice. In fact the vast majority of people DO go through their entire careers without being involved in a serious accident. This is in spite of them often having many unsafe behaviours. So people on some level make that computation and decide that the risk is so minimal that they’re prepared to take the chance. That serious accident has a low likelihood but high severity.

So where the likelihood is very low I can t least understand people’s thought process even if I don’t like it. But then behaviours can be frustratingly difficult to change even when you’re looking at high likelihood and high severity tasks. For example working on sub-standard scaffolding or HGV drivers that insist on strapping up and working around forklift trucks whilst they are loading. This regularly ends in fatal accidents. The driver is prioritising speed of getting set off over safety. And the forklift driver is prioritising avoiding some minor conflict by not telling the driver to go wait in their cab as per the site rules.

Anything less than an immediate adverse outcome and many people are prepared to take a chance. I think there’s two reasons for this:

Firstly it’s how the brain learns. You touch something hot as a child and then you know that all hot things hurt. So you avoid hot things in future. If you do something that someone says is unsafe, but nothing bad happens then it must be safe right?

Secondly people believe that things happen to other people. They believe that they’re not as stupid as everyone else. They’ll watch and jump out of the way in time. No-one wants to believe that they’re fallible or mortal. It’s a psychological wall people put up. Fundamentally I think that people view risk very differently to those who are trying to manage safety. For the layman I’d suggest that the table right more accurately assigns their risk rating of tasks.

Risk rating of tasks

It’s only when the outcome is probable, or almost certain that people take notice. So if this is the case then it’s the high severity that we need to focus these people’s minds on. To make people understand that it is just not worth gambling when the stakes are so high. And to make them understand that the scales between effort and convenience don’t tip so easily towards convenience if you add the weight of severity into them.

Recycling firm sentenced after employees trapped in machinery

A waste recycling firm, its director and site manager have been sentenced after an employee died and a second employee was seriously injured when they became trapped inside machinery.
Durham Crown Court heard how on 12 December 2015, Simon Hogg and Raymond Garrett were operating a waste processing line at the Aycliffe Quarry site of Stonegrave Aggregates Ltd in County Durham. The line became blocked at various points including inside a large industrial trommel machine. The trommel incorporates a large perforated revolving drum, which acts to agitate, rotate and sieve the waste materials.

The two employees stopped the trommel and entered the drum to clear the blockage. While they were inside the machine two other employees, who were unaware that they were inside the machinery, restarted the production line. Mr Hogg and Mr Garrett remained inside the revolving trommel drum for approximately four minutes before the line was stopped and the two men were found inside.

Simon Hogg died at the scene after sustaining multiple injuries to his head and torso. Raymond Garrett sustained multiple serious injuries to his legs, arms and torso requiring extensive hospital treatment.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found there was a history of blockages occurring on the waste processing line, with operators regularly having to enter the trommel to clear materials. The line was not adequately guarded to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery. Control systems, including emergency stop controls, were not compliant with relevant standards and management did not adequately monitor or enforce machinery isolation procedures. CCTV showed that what guarding was provided to the trommel was being regularly bypassed by staff, including the site manager David Basham.

Stonegrave Aggregates Limited of Aycliffe Quarry, Newton, Aycliffe, Durham pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations. They were fined £200,000 and ordered to pay costs of £48,952.

Director of Stonegrave Aggregates Limited Bruce Whitley of Oakwood Drive, Darlington pleaded guilty to breaching section 37 and section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. He was given a 12-month community order.

Site manager at Stonegrave Aggregates Limited Aycliffe Quarry site David Basham of Devonport Gardens, Middleton One Row, Darlington pleaded guilty to breaching section 37 and section 33 of the Health and Safety etc. Work Act 1974. He was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Michael Kingston said: “These tragic consequences could have been avoided. This case highlights the importance of implementing effective power isolation procedures when interacting with machinery and the need to monitor compliance to make sure these procedures are followed.

“HSE will not hesitate to prosecute companies or individuals who fail to implement and monitor safe systems of work.”

Contractor sentenced following safety failings during demolition work

A north west contractor has been sentenced after disturbing asbestos during demolition works and damaging underground cables that resulted in severe disruption to services.
Blackpool Magistrates’ Court heard how Peter Walling’s company had been contracted to demolish a former medical centre in Blackburn and clear the land ready for development.

Between 15 November and 6 December 2018, four separate incidents occurred on site when an excavator operated by Mr Walling, caused damage to underground cables and a substation
which caused loss of electricity supplies to the local area and repair costs to the electricity supplier of £49,000. In addition to this, Mr Walling removed asbestos containing materials prior to an asbestos survey taking place, potentially exposing workers to asbestos.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Mr Walling did not ensure all services had been disconnected prior to starting work. He had ignored warnings
from Electricity North West to stop work when low voltage cables were first dug up by the excavator, causing damage to the live substation, and only stopped working in a dangerous
area when the police attended the scene. Mr Walling did not implement a safe system of work when operating near to underground cables and failed to ensure that workers on site
were not exposed to asbestos.

Peter Andrew Walling of Arley Rise, Mellor, Blackburn pleaded guilty to breaching Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. He was sentenced to 200 hours unpaid
work and received a ten-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months and was ordered to pay costs of £7,000.

HSE inspector Christine McGlynn said after the hearing: “These incidents could so easily have been avoided by simply carrying out correct control measures and safe working practices.
Mr Walling recklessly failed to heed warnings and advice and put not only himself but also others on site at risk of electrocution and risk of exposure to asbestos containing materials.
“Contractors should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those that fall below the required standards.”