Pedestrian fatalities prompt HSE safety notice on use of wheeled loading shovels
Britain’s safety regulator has today, 25 October, issued a safety notice on the use of wheeled loading shovels, widely used in the waste and recycling sector.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) notice follows nine fatal vehicle-pedestrian collisions in the past four years. Six of these occurred in the waste and recycling sector, with the remainder involved moving wood chip.
HSE has identified issues of poor visibility caused by the bucket and load, the engine at the rear and the cab pillars, significantly reducing the drivers’ ability to see pedestrians and, to a lesser extent, other vehicles. The use of larger capacity buckets, which has become common practice where low-density material is being moved, makes forward visibility significantly worse.
Read more about the new safety notice on the HSE website.
Research finds Nordic countries are paving the way for the future of shared parental leave
Pablo Vandenabeele, Clinical Director for Mental Health at Bupa UK, shares the benefits of shared parental leave for new dads and dads-to-be.
One area that’s surged in popularity over recent months is ‘shared parental leave’. This is where both parents can take time off in a more flexible way during your baby’s first year. New research has revealed a 33% increase in Google UK searches for ‘shared parental leave’ over the past year.
Bupa analysed every country in Europe to find out who offers the most statutory maternity and paternity leave for new parents. This means the number of days new mums and dads can take off work whilst still being paid from their employer when a child is born.
Research has shown that Nordic countries are paving the way for more flexible parental leave, allowing parents to share their time-off. New parents in Sweden are entitled to 480 days leave after their child is born, compared with 50 weeks (380 days) in the UK.
For more on the research, visit the SHP website.
IOSH supports campaign to tackle most common work-related health problem
The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is supporting a campaign to help prevent and manage work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).
With three in every five workers affected, MSDs are one of the most frequent causes of disability, sick leave and early retirement and the most common work-related health problem in Europe.
MSD ailments include back and neck pain, tendinitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome and carpal tunnel syndrome, which are primarily caused or aggravated by work or the working environment.
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is aiming to raise awareness of MSDs and their impact on individuals, business and society though its Healthy Workplaces Lighten the Load campaign.
Learn more about the campaign on the IOSH website.
£130k fine for manufacturer after employee was crushed
A Lincolnshire-based food manufacturer has been fined after one of its employees sustained two broken ribs having been crushed within an industrial cooking machine whilst working to clear a blocked water inlet.
The employee was crushed in the machine after its safety systems were over-ridden and the machine worked on whilst it was live. It should have been isolated before work on it began, Lincoln Magistrates’ Court was told.
The HSE’s investigation found that the task was carried out by the employees in this fashion on a regular basis and that the company should have been aware.
No risk assessment of the task had been completed and employees had not been provided with a safe system of work to carry it out. The lack of a safe system of work for the task and the company’s failure to monitor how the work was done, led employees to devise their own way of conducting the procedure which included over-riding the safety systems and using unsafe working practices.
Read about the incident on the SHP website.
To keep up to date with the latest health & safety news and advice, follow us on social media: