The importance of a good health and safety consultancy was highlighted recently by a tragic story that hit the headlines in which adherence to guidelines caused the death a woman. The newspapers predictably went into a frenzy of self righteous justification, but was it a problem with the rules or rather the manner in which they were applied?
The incident occurred when a women fell down a mine shaft. Fire fighters were rendered impotent to help her because of a memo sent round a couple of weeks earlier that stipulated their harnessed were only to be used for lifting fire fighters. Using them on a member of the public it seemed presented an unreasonable risk and could leave the service open to litigation. Eventually a hill rescue team arrived who had not received any such memo. They had not compunction about helping the striken woman, but unfortunately by then it was too late.
So who was to blame? Rather than take the easy option and complain about the regulations, lets look at how they were implemented. Without question the rules were not set down to prevent fire fighters doing their job. Instead it is a question of how those regulations had been interprested.
This is an extreme example, but it demonstrates the value of effective health and safety consultancy. Every company has a set of responsibilities to their staff. The requirements may seem intimidating to employers at first sight, but the more you understand the simpler the entire process becomes.
The first thing to understand is that nobody expects you to eliminate all aspects of risk. That is impossible. You can be injured getting out of bed in the morning. However you should work hard to identify all risks and, where possible, take appropriate steps to eliminate them. That is where using a health and safety consultancy can come in handy.
By training yourself and staff you can improve the value of your initial risk assessment. This will flag up any potential issues and provide you with the expertise to take appropriate measures and, where applicable, ensure adequate equipment is on hand.
Knowledge brings power, so they say. While the number of regulations many companies must comply with can seem excessive, bringing in a health and safety can help you understand the reasoning behind them. That breaks down some of the barriers of misunderstanding that traditionally exist between professionals and those charged with ensuring regulatory compliance.
Author Resource:-
Dominic Donaldson is a business expert. Find out more about Health and Safety and the services offered from Data Sound.
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