The Health and Safety Executive (or HSE) is the organisation that oversees health, safety and welfare in the workplace across Great Britain. Northern Ireland has its own body that looks after workplace safety. While the HSE name is well-known, not everyone is clear on its specific role. In this week’s… Read More »

Learning a new skill, taking a course or undergoing training to further your career doesn’t mean sitting in a classroom anymore. In fact, e-learning is incredibly popular and has been growing dramatically in recent years. A study in 2015 showed that 23% of students wouldn’t undertake a degree if there… Read More »

Employers are now being fined more than ever if they fall foul of health and safety legislation. From January 2016 to January 2017 £76.7m worth of fines were dished out to employers that failed to keep their workers safe. This is over double the amount from the year before. A… Read More »

Many jobs require manual handling to a certain extent. This can be consistently throughout the day or even just now and again however regardless of how often it is required risk assessments need to be made to ensure safety. Over a million individuals in the UK suffer from a musculoskeletal… Read More »

The right to work in a safe environment is enshrined in health and safety law in the UK however there is often some confusion about who is responsible for health and safety in the workplace. The UK generally has a safer working culture than the rest of the EU but… Read More »

With all the talk focused on Brexit and how it is going to affect us in the UK, new data has been released that shows that Britain generally has a more positive outlook on health and safety than the rest of the EU. Brexit is unlikely to change a great… Read More »

Many people in the UK are deemed as ‘lone workers’. If you regularly work by yourself without direct supervision, then you fall under this category. In fact, many people don’t even realise they are lone workers because while they might physically work with other people, they don’t work with their… Read More »

We are generally safer in the workplace today than we have ever been at any point in the past. This is largely due to stricter legislation and health and safety regulations that have effectively dealt with lax safety practices. Employers are under more scrutiny than ever to ensure the wellbeing… Read More »

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) that ensures businesses are following relevant health and safety legislation has announced that it is aiming to make the cost recovery dispute process fully independent. In recent years, there has been a clampdown on businesses that breach health and safety law either by putting… Read More »

Discarding of your business waste is of paramount importance in order to comply with health and safety regulations. Many businesses fall foul of these laws every year and the fines for incorrectly or illegally disposing of commercial waste can run into the tens of thousands of pounds and imprisonment is… Read More »

Since the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act was passed, the UK has become one of the safest countries to work in. In terms of fatalities at work, the UK had 0.51 per 100,000 employees in 2013 which was significantly lower than France (2.94 per 100,000 workers, Italy 1.24… Read More »

Surely we have all considered ‘throwing a sickie’ at some point in our working lives. In the vast majority of cases employees genuinely are sick. This can be either physical illness or a mental health issue and it is the reason why we are allowed a certain amount of sick… Read More »

Health and safety is often associated with physical problems. When you think of safety in the workplace most people conjure up the image of someone falling off a ladder or not shutting down machinery properly. While we blogged about Reducing Workplace Stress to Improve Health and Safety a few months… Read More »

Workplace coaching is a big business. Millions of pounds every year is spent on bringing in external coaches or training managers to coach employees. This usually involves guiding someone through a particular process to find the answers themselves. It aides personal and professional development and it is an effective way… Read More »

There are currently over 10 million people who work in offices across the UK. This makes up around 1/3 of the total number in employment however health and safety for office workers can often be an overlooked subject. Surely sitting at your desk and attending a few meetings everyday won’t… Read More »

It’s the middle of January. You’ve just got back into the swing of things at work after being off over Christmas and your workplace is freezing. We all know the person that tries to get everyone half day because of the thermostat has dipped below a certain level. It rarely… Read More »

Training staff on first aid is something that every business across the country should take seriously. It is the law to have adequate first aid resources and a dedicated ‘first aidder’ in the workplace. The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 were established so that adequate personnel, equipment and facilities… Read More »

Do you enjoy training at work? Does spending a day undertaking health and safety training sound like something that will benefit your job or does it sound like something that is a waste of time? The fact is that health and safety training is a vital part of any modern… Read More »

Health and safety is vitally important to every business in this day and age. Some think that it only really applies to building sites, factories or agricultural companies. The fact is that health and safety law applies to everyone and businesses from all sectors are often in breach of regulations…. Read More »

Health and Safety breaches don’t just result in workplace injuries and employee’s spending time off work. Your business is under threat from being prosecuted too. In 2015-16 HSE and Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) saw a 6% rise in the number of cases prosecuted across Great Britain… Read More »