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Failure to conduct periodic fixed-time-to (or scheduled) maintenance on off-highway plant and equipment represents a significant health and safety hazard and major litigation risk for utility contractors completing service excavation and reinstatement works on public highways. Mini-excavators are a ubiquitous mobile plant item used for such tasks and have recently been responsible for several major injuries and fatalities involving workers and members of the public in the United Kingdom (UK). The research utilises the method of triangulation to examine the maintenance practices of utility contractors in the UK. Findings from the research reveal that a combination of prevailing market forces and internal ‘company’ pressures have inadvertently removed knowledgeable and trained operators, site foremen and managerial supervisors from hands-on maintenance inspections. Rather, ‘virtual’ maintenance protocols and procedures are adopted by head office but rarely fully implemented on-site. The research concludes with pragmatic recommendations and direction for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of runaway incidents involving thermal chemical reactions in the UK over the past 25 years (1988-2013) has been carried out. The objective of this study is to determine possible causes of thermal runaway incidents. A statistical analysis of the underlying problems that led to thermal runaway incidents has been provided. A comparison of the current study on thermal runaway incidents with those identified prior to 1988 has been carried out. This study clearly shows that lessons have not been learnt from thermal runaway incidents caused by operator errors, management failures and lack of organised operating procedures. These factors have been the possible causes of about 77% of all the thermal runaway incidents analysed in this study. The number of fatalities and injuries as a result of thermal runaway incidents has increased by ~325% and ~279%, respectively, in the last 25 years even though the number of incidents was significantly less. On the basis of this analysis, several recommendations have been proposed that could help to minimise the risks associated with any thermal runaway incidents in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the pursuit of Health and Safety (H&S) improvement within the UK construction industry, several studies have been conducted to identify accident causal factors to enable the development of accident prevention measures. Adding to such studies, a critique of H&S literature demonstrates that construction project features (CPFs) such as the nature of project, method of construction, site restriction, project duration, procurement system, design complexity, level of construction, and subcontracting contribute to accident causation and that their contribution is through the introduction of proximal accident causal factors into the construction process. However, the extent of this contribution by these CPFs remains sparingly known and requires further investigation. The study provides this insight by indicating that the extent to which CPFs contribute to accident causation is influenced by two factors; the extent to which the proximal factors contribute to accident causation; and the extent to which the proximal factors are prevalent within the CPFs. In line with this fresh insight, an approach for determining the extent to which CPFs contribute to accident causation is put forth. The approach proposes to use a qualitative–quantitative rating scale to determine the two determinant factors and then combine them using a mathematical formula to obtain the extent to which CPFs contribute to accident causation. By this approach the grey areas in literature concerning the extent to which CPFs contribute to accident causation will be illuminated and by that contribute to improvement in construction accident prevention. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Approaches to planning for health and safety in the UK construction industry have been criticised for being bureaucratic and irrelevant, especially if done by individuals in isolation. This paper reports on the findings of a research project, commissioned by the UK Health and Safety Executive, which investigated the integration of health and safety with construction project planning. A combination of group and individual interviews were undertaken, with qualitative methods of analysis, to develop integrated management tools for all members of the project team. Eight integrated tools were developed: a responsibility chart; an option evaluation chart; health and safety hazard workshops; safety information on drawings; red-amber-green lists; health and safety milestones on programmes; and a design change control process. These were found to aid project planning while simultaneously integrating health and safety issues. However, recommendations are given on how their application can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The research objectives are to investigate current methods of fall protection, identify issues in their selection and use, and produce guidance on best practice for designers and constructors. Design/methodology/approach - A steering group with both health and safety and production experience directed a variety of data collection methods: interviews with industry specialists to assist in identifying the significant issues in fall protection and selecting fall protection systems; study of published research, legislation, codes of practice, and system technical data; focus groups to investigate both generic and system-specific issues; and visits to manufacturers, suppliers, contractors' offices and sites, to observe and discuss systems in development, planning, erection and operation. Findings - This paper deals with all the general issues in equipment selection: a hierarchy of selection; legislative guidance; interaction with the structure; impact on site operations; rescue of fallers; issues specific to maintenance and refurbishment; and costs arising from equipment selection. Originality/value - The paper provides a summary of the most important issues contained in the fall Health & Safety Executive report of the research, the only comprehensive source of such practical guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines representation and consultation on health and safety in industries that use chemicals in Great Britain, specifically after the 1977 Safety Representatives and Safety Committees regulations which gave unions the right to appoint health and safety representatives. An analysis of five companies found that joint arrangements between union representatives and safety professionals resulted in better safety outcomes. Additionally, there is a relation between management consultation on general issues and issues of health and safety.

Presents a study that discusses the association of occupational injuries with the manual handling of loads and patients in Great Britain. Consideration of training in manual handling techniques on primary means of avoiding and preventing occupational injury; Lifetime prevalence of physiotherapists on work-related musculoskeletal disorders; Implementation of the researchers on an on-site education program on incidence of low back pain of participants.

Abstract This paper reports an employee-management consensus approach for identifying safety initiatives that are both appropriate to the working environment and also perceived to be appropriate by the workforce. Issues affecting the success of employee involvement schemes are discussed and the methods used during the implementation stages of the programme to address them are described. The case study was set in the UK distribution division of an international oil company and was applied to safety issues affecting the division's tanker drivers. The study used an employee questionnaire to assess drivers' perceptions of safety management, workplace conditions and safety concerns. Factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to develop a management/workplace/workforce model to describe the drivers' working environment. The model was then used to discuss and explain the drivers' choices of safety initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments in public access to information on environmental risk concerns are discussed in relation to the regulation of major hazard industry. Confidentiality has traditionally been part and parcel of the 'consensual' approach to risk regulation in the UK. However, in response to a number of pressures, including the wider repercussions of accident events at Seveso and Bhopal, moves towards greater openness have been seen. This paper describes and analyses these significant changes in policy, identifies the practical and political basis for the public's right to know about industrial hazards, and assesses the limits to openness now in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour intensification has often been assumed to be related to industrial safety, but surprisingly different views of this relationship have been held and systematic enquiry is lacking. A measure called the percentage utilization of labour (PUL) claims to monitor the intensity of labour in British manufacturing and therefore potentially affords the opportunity for a much more systematic investigation into the effects of labour intensity on industrial safety than has ever been possible before. This paper introduces the PUL measure and indicates why it might be thought particularly likely to register an increase in the 1980s. It then examines variation in PUL and in industrial injury rates in British manufacturing, both in the early part of the 1980s and over a longer period, in order to assess whether changes in PUL have tended to be associated with changes in safety. No consistent relationship is found. The evidence presented is reviewed, and the relationship between industrial injury rates, intensification of labour and the adequacy of the PUL measure for safety research is reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a detailed study of engineering firms in Great Britain to explore the ways in which trade unions organize and act on health and safety questions. It was through the union form of collective organization that many workers began to seek relief from danger and work-related ill-health. Many people in the labor movement, unions and their parliamentary counterparts, campaigned for legislation to deal with ill-health and danger at workplace. The Health and Safety at Work Act was passed in 1974 that laid down the guidelines for the procedures that have been followed ever since. It provided a broad framework for the regulation of health and safety at work, defining workplaces, imposing requirements and the provision for health and safety activity. The Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations was enacted in the year 1978. They recognized workplace union representatives on health and safety as one partner in the process of self-regulation.

This article presents a study on industrial health and safety considerations in Great Britain. First, the finding that unionized employees are disproportionately concentrated in the high accident rate industries should go a considerable way towards diffusing criticism that the decision that led to safety representatives being union, as opposed to employee appointed, can only be justified on industrial relations, and not on health and safety grounds. And secondly, the finding that the high accident rate industries are also those which have a disproportionate amount of organized and non-organized conflict clearly suggest that the potential impact of the safety representative/committee functions in improving workplace health and safety will inevitably be much influenced by the larger industrial relations context.

This article focuses on the regulating safety on offshore oil installations in the British sector of the north sea. Whatever the priority allocated to safety in the planning and execution of offshore operations, the frontier image is one that readily reconciles one to the inevitability of accidents. People are killed at inhospitable frontiers. A further image which is often projected in discussions of offshore safety is that of necessary sacrifice for the common weal. The issue of safety in the North Sea first arose in the context of attempts to supply the legal framework needed for offshore developments to get under way. While the international basis for the creation of the necessary system of law already existed in the Continental Shelf Convention of 1958, there was no British legislation to cover the now imminent exploratory activities on her Continental Shelf. In 1964, the Continental Shelf Act was passed which provided the requisite legal framework for exploration to get under way, it also contained provisions of relevance to the issue of safety.

Points out the significance of government plans for public consultation for the improvement of industrial safety among companies in Great Britain. Supervision of hazardous projects in construction and operation to ensure approvals are not breached; Confidence based on a long record of sound judgment in comparable matters; Identification of accidents brought about by the emissions of substances whose toxicity is not suspected until much later.

The article examines the effectives regarding the use of safety posters in iron and steelworks industry in Great Britain as part of its overall accident prevention effort. Accidents in the industry were primarily categorized as caused by plant or material failure, contact between machinery and person or by momentary creation of an unsafe situation. Human behavior has been pointed out as a main contributing factor in causing accidents. Experimental design and procedures of the study were discussed. Conclusions and results were also included.

This paper gives a review of the work on accident prevention in the past few years, outlines the results of investigations on accident proneness, and suggests ways in which the public, not only those engaged in industry, whether worker or employer, might co-operate to reduce the still too high accident-rate in this country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the development of the Control of Major Accidents Hazards (COMAH) regulations in Great Britain. It reveals that COMAH aim to reduce the risks of major accidents associated to the handling of hazardous substances in chemical and production facilities. It presents the factors that need to be considered that will help enhance health and safety in the workplace, which include implementation of a process safety management (PSM) through the installation of risk control systems and development of standards for fluid containment. In addition, societal risk should be included in the safety reports of companies. INSETS: In Brief;COMAH : an Integrated approach to risk management.

After two years' study, the Robens Committee on Safety and Health at Work has reported its findings. Its terms of reference required it to examine the existing statutory provisions and to recommend any changes it regarded as necessary in relation to two sets of people: employees in general and the public in so far as work-based hazards affect them. The subject of general environmental pollution was expressly excluded, presumably because the Ashby Commission was set up to deal with the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Great Britain's Working Time Directive, the exemptions from this Directive, and the efforts of the Government to keep their opt-out from it. It states that the directive is designed to protect the health and safety of workers by limiting the average working week to 48 hours over a 12-month period. The number of people working over 48 hours per week, the physical and psychological effects of long hours, and the arguments and likely outcome of the issue, are also discussed.

The article reports that the British Health and Safety Executive has released four color films on the safe use and guarding of a broad range of industrial machinery. They are entitled "Machinery Guarding," "Abrasive Wheels," "Woodworking Machines Regulations 1974," and "The Guarding of Power Presses." The films are all geared towards shop floor to middle management levels, including safety personnel.

This article presents the measures to prevent health and safety hazards at the workplace in Great Britain. One consequence of the Health and Safety at Work Act has been the monitoring of the workplace atmosphere for toxic and harmful substances. In order to undertake such monitoring, management and trade unionists require official standards such as the Health and Safety Executive Guidance, issued annually; this suggests maximum allowable concentrations of chemical substances in the atmosphere and the Code of Practice for Reducing the Exposure of Employed Persons to Noise 1972, which suggests a maximum noise level which a worker can tolerate without undergoing hearing damage. These official standards allow some hazards to workers and at times quite serious hazards; but the underlying assumption presumably behind such standards is to reduce the number of deaths and disabilities from hazards at work.

The decision to revise and standardise the thousands of industrial hazard signs used in ICI plants in the United Kingdom has now resulted in the new signs being made available to other companies throughout the country. The sign industry will also be given the opportunity of producing the signs for their own customers.
The signs feature new and striking graphics which can be easily identified and understood. Colours follow International Standards Organisation (ISO) recommendations -- red and yellow for various hazard warnings and green for safety measures and equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A summary is presented of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, Application Outside Great Britain (Variation) Order 2009, which became effective starting August 5, 2009.

The article reports on the launching of "Falling Isn't Funny," a video training package developed by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) in Great Britain. The video training package aims to lessen the number of accidents caused by falling objects from heights on construction sites. It is a 15-minute video which shows three different accidents involving falls from height where all of which could have been avoided. Furthermore, CITB is also planning to launch another video training package entitled "The Signs for Safety," which emphasizes the importance of safety signs among construction workers.

Reports on the study conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research on nurses' attitude toward HIV and AIDS precaution. Failure of nurses to adopt adequate safety measures because of lack of protective supplies; Actions taken by nursing leaders to promote safety practices; Implications of the study for AIDS prevention and control.

The article presents a list of films on occupational health and safety in Great Britain. Some of the films included in the list are: "One Step Away," "Health At Work," "Office Safety," "One Last Shock," etc. "One Step Away," from the Health and Safety Executive deals with the hazards of working on roofs. It is based on three case histories and presents essential safety rules to be followed to ensure staying one step away from disaster. The film "Rescue Team Alert" demonstrates the contribution which a factory's own rescue team can make in an emergency. "John Davis Factory Inspector," a color film shows exactly what can happen when the man from the factory inspectorate calls. The film covers three crowded days of typical jobs undertaken by factory inspectors. "Better Make Sure" is intended to train first-line supervisors in effective accident investigation and reporting.