Search

Background: Studies have reported evidence on sharps injuries among nursing, medical and dental students but little is known about the amount, type and causes of sharps injuries affecting other healthcare students. Aim: The aim of the narrative review was to identify the extent, type and causes of sharps injuries sustained by healthcare students, especially those not in those fields. Method: Eight databases were searched using keywords to identify studies published between 1980 and March 2023. Findings: This narrative review highlights that some groups of healthcare students, including those studying pharmacy, physiotherapy and radiography, sustain sharps injuries from similar devices as reported in research on such injuries in nursing, medical and nursing students. Sharps injuries happen in a range of healthcare environments, and many were not reported by students. The main cause of a sharps injury identified was a lack of knowledge. Conclusion: More research is needed on the extent of sharps injuries in healthcare students in European countries and the UK as well as on their physical and psychological effects. Education and training in sharps use and disposal are essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The choice of the "right" methodology to carry out the occupational accident investigation process is not an easy task. Each methodology has different conceptual and practical characteristics. The choice will depend to a large extent on the conceptual accident model being used. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study has been to evaluate and compare a set of nine methodologies recognised as the most widely used in the field of occupational accident investigation. METHODS: For this purpose, six evaluation criteria are used which have already been applied and validated by the scientific community with a clear emphasis on the holistic nature of these methodologies. RESULTS: The results show a detailed analysis of the conceptual, methodological and practical characteristics of the nine selected occupational accident investigation methodologies. The conceptual framework of each of the methodologies, their holistic characteristics in terms of whether they cover the complete information cycle and its possible interrelation, reliability and validity of the methodologies, the experience required for their application, the flexibility in terms of being able to be used in different work environments and finally the ability of the methodology to motivate organisational improvement are presented. CONCLUSIONS: From this study, it is clear that the analysis of occupational accident investigation it is becoming increasingly necessary to employ scientific methodologies with a clear proactive approach in order to meet the challenges of changing socio-technical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how work-related suicides are monitored, investigated and regulated in the UK, examining a small selection of cases and drawing on international comparison with other countries. Effective data collection and regulation are the cornerstone of suicide prevention, and this paper aims to consider whether the UK's current regulatory framework provides an effective basis for preventing work-related suicides. Design/methodology/approach: This study draws on qualitative sociological methods and is based on an in-depth analysis of 12 suicide cases occurring between 2015 and 2020. In each case, work-related causal factors had been previously identified by at least one official source (police enquiry, coroner or employer's investigation). This study analysed multiple sources of documentation and undertook interviews with individuals close to each suicide case. The aim of this study was to consider the organisational response of three stakeholder organisations to the suicides: the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the coroner and the employer. Findings: The study points to serious shortcomings in the UK's regulatory response to work-related suicides. Suicides are currently not recorded, investigated or regulated. Whereas the fracture of an arm or leg in the workplace needs to be reported to the HSE for further investigation, a suicide occurring in the workplace or that is work-related does not need to be reported to any public agency. Employers are not required to investigate an employee suicide or make any changes to workplace policies and practices in the aftermath of a suicide. The work-related factors that may have caused one suicide may, therefore, continue to pose health and safety risks to other employees. Originality/value: Whereas some recent studies have examined work-related suicides within specific occupations in the UK, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to analyse the UK's regulatory framework for work-related suicides. The study on which the paper is based produced a set of recommendations that were targeted at key stakeholder organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted 3 studies to investigate how poor quality sleep relates to work injuries. First, using a sample of employed people living in the United Kingdom (N = 4,238; Study 1), we found that poor quality sleep was related to more frequent workplace injuries via negative affect rather than cognitive failures. Second, we again compared parallel pathways using a sample of USA employees (N = 202; Study 2): poor quality sleep was related to more frequent work injuries via work-related negative affect but not work-related cognitive failures. Third, we used a 2-wave sample of employees from the United Kingdom (N = 71; Study 3) finding that poor quality sleep was related to more frequent work injuries 7 weeks later via negative affect. Comparing high arousal and low arousal negative affect as competing pathways showed that there was a significant indirect effect of the former on the poor quality sleep-work injuries relationship but not the latter. Across 3 studies, we implicated the role of self-control failure stemming from poor quality sleep in predicting more frequent work injuries and suggested initiatives targeting high arousal negative affect as a way of reducing work injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research on safety culture maturity in hospitals is rare and still focuses on patient safety, not yet involved safety and occupational accidents. Previous research uses the Manchester Patient Safety Framework (Ma PSaF) instrument to measure 5 levels of patient safety culture maturity: Pathological, Reactive, Bureaucratic, Proactive and Generative. This study aims to investigate the level of patient safety culture maturity in hospitals. Method: This study used a systematic literature review of 5 databases: PubMed, EBSCO, Proquest, Science Direct and Scopus. Inclusion criteria in this study are articles related to patient safety criteria; research outcome in this study is patient safety maturity level; 3) articles in the form of results obtained from the keywords used;articles have been published since 2009-2019; the article is an academic journal;english articles. 498 articles were obtained and after screening 2 articles selected. Results: The two articles involved 2 countries: United Kingdom and Indonesia. There are 10 indicators examined in both studies which one developed 10 indicators with 24 dimensions. Study in UK, using univariate quantitative method. Research in Indonesia uses a qualitative method by interviewing experts and literature studies, there is a change in the definition of maturity in 3 dimensions to maintain research reliability, such as safety, communication and teamwork. Maturity of patient safety culture in the UK is proactive level. Conclusions: There are 10 keys indictors for maturity of a patient safety culture: commitment to overall continuous improvement, priority given to safety, system errors and individual responsibility, recording incidents and best practices, evaluating incidents and practices best, study and make changes, communication about safety issues, personnel management and safety issues, staff education and training, teamwork. At present the safety culture maturity measuring instrument only patient safety. Further research should measure the maturity of safety culture more comprehensive including patient safety, occupational safety and health (OSH). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effects of immigration on the allocation of occupational physical burden and work injury risks. Using data for England and Wales from the Labour Force Survey (2003–2013), we find that, on average, immigration leads to a reallocation of UK-born workers towards jobs characterised by lower physical burden and injury risk. The results also show important differences across skill groups. Immigration reduces the average physical burden of UK-born workers with medium levels of education, but has no significant effect on those with low levels. We also find that that immigration led to an improvement self-reported measures of native workers' health. These findings, together with the evidence that immigrants report lower injury rates than natives, suggest that the reallocation of tasks could reduce overall health care costs and the human and financial costs typically associated with workplace injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The1972RobensReport is widely regarded to have provided the underlyingrationale for the 'modern' system of occupational health and safety regulation in Britain, embodied in the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSW Act) 1974. The HSWAct advanced a new, more flexible system of regulation, premised on the ideal of self-regulation by industry. This article advances a more nuanced historical understanding of the Report and its ethos--the 'Robens philosophy'--than hitherto developed, situating its assumptions about accidents, regulation and the role of the state in the social, economic and political context of Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s. Highlighting the interaction between these trends andlong-established regulatory practices, the article argues that the turn to 'self-regulation' heralded by the Robens Report was highly convincing from a political and regulatory perspective at the time it was promulgated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treatment of maxillofacial injuries forms a substantial part of the work in oral and maxillofacial units, but injuries sustained in work-related incidents are uncommon, mainly because of the strict enforcement of Health and Safety policies. We used data from the Health and Safety Executive in the United Kingdom to review the incidence and aetiology of maxillofacial injuries that result from industrial accidents in the UK, and highlight the case of a worker who sustained an isolated fracture of the nasoethmoidal complex when he was trapped in a cheese press. In 2010-2011, roughly 115 379 accidents or incidents at work were reported in the UK, and of the 1623 (1%) that were maxillofacial, 81% occurred in the service sector. The most common mechanism of injury was assault (37%) and the most common injury was contusion (30%). Since the introduction of the Health and Safety Act, work-related accidents in the UK have decreased considerably. However, they will continue to occur because of human error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring patients are comfortable in bed is key to effective palliative care, but when moving and positioning patients in bed, health professionals face an occupational risk of injury. The turning and positioning (TAP) system is a new method of moving patients in bed, that evidence has shown to reduce the risk of injury to caregivers. Providing the correct bed surface is another aspect of bed care essential to the comfort of the palliative patient, and to aid wound prevention and treatment. It is important to take a patient-centred approach when considering the most appropriate bed surface patients. This article provides an overview and discussion of these two aspects of bed care for palliative patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background There are very few careful studies of differences in occupational fatality rates across countries, much less studies that try to account for those differences. Methods We compare the rate of work injury fatalities (excluding deaths due to highway motor vehicle crashes and those due to violence) identified by the US Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in recent years with the number reported to the Health and Safety Executive in the United Kingdom (UK) and by other European Union (EU) members through Eurostat. Results In 2010, the fatality rate in the UK was about 1/3 the rate in the US. In construction the rate was about ¼ the US rate, a difference that had grown substantially since the 1990s. Several other EU members had rates almost as low as the UK rate. Across EU countries, lower rates were associated with high-level management attention to safety issues and to in-house preparation of 'risk assessments.' Conclusions Although work fatality rates have declined in the US, fatality rates are much lower and have declined faster in recent years in the UK. Efforts to find out the reasons for the much better UK outcomes could be productive. Am. J. Ind. Med. 57:4-14, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If it's not safe, don't do it! Accidents at work and lost days cost a lot of money. A calculation of the consequential cost of accidents by the Allgemeine Unfallversicherungsanstalt (AUVA) estimates this at 19, 128 Euro per accident in 2010. In the construction industry in Great Britain and the USA, employers and employees generally seem to attach more importance to occupational safety and communicate this more effectively than in Austria and Germany. What are the possible explanations for this difference? This article investigates basic cultural differences in general, in the safety culture and different legal traditions. The factors mentioned are not only decisive for the usual contract and cooperation models between employer and employee in these countries but also have an effect on the sickness statistics and the cost of accidents. Wenn es nicht sicher ist, mach es nicht! Arbeitsunfälle und Ausfallstage kosten viel Geld. Eine Unfallfolgekostenberechnung der Allgemeinen Unfallversicherungsanstalt (AUVA) schätzt diese im Bauwesen pro Unfall im Jahr 2010 auf 19.128 Euro. In der Bauindustrie in Großbritannien und den USA scheinen Auftraggeber und Auftragnehmer generell mehr Wert auf Arbeitssicherheit zu legen und dies auch besser als in Österreich und Deutschland zu kommunizieren. Was sind mögliche Gründe für diese Unterschiede? Dieser Beitrag geht auf grundlegende kulturelle Unterschiede im Allgemeinen, in der Sicherheitskultur und auf unterschiedliche Rechtskreise ein. Die genannten Faktoren sind nicht nur ausschlaggebend für die in diesen Ländern zwischen Auftraggeber und Auftragnehmer gebräuchlichen Vertrags- und Kooperationsmodelle, sondern wirken sich auch auf die Krankenstandsstatistiken und Unfallkosten im Bauwesen aus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background In the UK, increasing numbers of paid employees are over 60 years with further increases expected as the state pension age rises. Some concern surrounds possible increased work-related illness and accidents for people working beyond the age of 60.Aims To identify the available evidence for health and safety risks of workers over age 60 years with respect to factors associated with injuries and accidents.Methods Databases searched included PUBMED, OSHUpdate, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSHTIC-2), SafetyLit, the UK The Health and Safety Executive (HSELINE) and the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety until December 2009. Inclusion criteria were workers aged over 60 years. Findings were grouped into occupational accidents and injuries and individual and workplace factors that may have influenced risk of injury to the over-60s.Results Very little direct evidence was found concerning safety practices and health risks of workers over age 60. Some safety risks were associated with specific physical declines such as age-related hearing loss. Overall, these workers had fewer accidents and injuries but these were more likely to be serious or fatal when they occurred. There was no strong evidence that work patterns, including shift work or overtime, affected safety. Protective, compensatory strategies or experience may maintain safe working practices.Conclusions Implications for health and safety risks cannot be assessed without longitudinal research on workforces with substantial numbers of workers over age 60 in order to address the healthy worker effect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The 19th century and first half of the 20th century is one of those periods in history of rapid economical, technical and social changes. There is an ongoing mechanization, followed by a movement to rationalize production and to make it cost effective. This has created a heavy burden of occupational deaths amongst workers. In this period occupational safety is developing into a professional field. Engineers are enclosing hazards and fencing heights, shaping up safety technique, and writing very practical publications on occupational safety. These publications, predominantly published in the United States, are leading to quite some safety related metaphors, with the iceberg and the domino’s as the most famous ones. Sociologists, psychologists, and physicians are more concerned with questions related to accident causation, and these specialists are conducting research leading to two different safety theories. Causes of occupational accident are found either in the workers’ capacity to handle hazardous situations, or in external causes, like very long working hours, dangerous machines and the increased pressures of work and speed of production. The Pittsburgh survey, the first extended analysis of occupational accidents in a steel district, strongly advocated the environmental hypothesis, while the so-called ‘individual hypothesis’ is favored by the American Safety First Movement, starting as a private initiative in 1906 by US Steel, and later spreading out over Western European countries. The British Industrial Fatigue Board has given the individual hypothesis its scientific justification. Despite scientific criticism just after World War II on the concept of accident proneness and ‘unsafe acts’, its popularity is not fading. Even nowadays the famous metaphors are still part of the vocational training of safety experts, also in The Netherlands. Apparently professional and scientific developments in occupational safety are belonging to two separate worlds. Before World War II, The Netherlands is not a leading country in occupational safety but a follower, first of France and the German speaking countries. After World War I its focus is directed towards the Anglo-Saxon countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The main objectives of this study were to investigate the causes and circumstances of all fatal work-related accidents in the UK fishing industry from 1996 to 2005, to compare fatal accident rates with those in all other British occupations and industries and in the general British workforce, and to establish long term trends in the fatal accident rate in UK fishing since 1919. Of 160 deaths from work-related accidents in the UK fishing industry from 1996 to 2005, 86 arose from incidents involving fishing vessels and 74 were from personal accidents, with a fatal accident rate of 102 per 100,000 fishermen-years. After fishermen, the next most hazardous occupations were dockers and stevedores (28 per 100,000), refuse and salvage workers (25), agricultural machinery drivers (18), steel erectors, road construction workers (both 15), roofers (13) and scaffolders (12). The fatal accident rate among fishermen was 115 times greater than in the general British workforce, while there has been little reduction in the fatal accident rate in the UK fishing industry in the last 60 years. This study shows that commercial fishing is by far the most hazardous occupation in Britain. Prevention of fatal accidents should focus on increased use of personal flotation devices, reductions in lone fishing and the use of unstable, unseaworthy and badly maintained fishing vessels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Lifting operations and associated equipment have become commonplace within the UK construction industry. However, recent high profile accidents involving lifting equipment have shown that the result of its misuse can have serious cost and health implications. The main aim of the research was to investigate lifting operations on construction sites exploring different options, their effectiveness, and their effect on safety. This research looked into the processes in place; the factors that have to be taken into consideration when placing and using lifting equipment; and the competent persons required when operating equipment. With these aims, literature review was conducted. This was followed by investigation on three construction sites. These case studies were enhanced through interviews with general site staff, managerial staff, and appointed persons. The findings revealed six main points to improve safety in lifting operations. These are: through planning; training; equipment selection, use and inspection; feedback/communication; appointed person’s role; and database. Thorough planning of lifting operations has positive effects on safety. There is need for tighter accreditation of all qualifications in the lifting operations field. The charter of major lifting equipment from specialist contractors should be considered as industry best practise. Companies should avoid authoritarian working culture to facilitate efficient feedback to improve safety. The appointed person should have site based role. Site inspections and maintenance should be monitored on a national database form. Practitioners can benefit from this paper as it provides information on experiences from three construction sites. Furthermore, researchers can use the findings for their future studies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Workplace transport risks remain the second largest cause of work-related fatal and major injuries in the UK. In the period 2004–2005, of the 5,427 workplace transport injuries, 68 were fatal and industrial lift trucks were associated with 24% of accidents. This study aimed to quantify risk perceptions and attitudes of lift truck operators for workplace transport risks and to ascertain opinions on common accidents, risk factors, and control measures. The cross-sectional study design with a postal questionnaire collected data in a population of lift truck operators (n = 140). Questions related to training and experience; perception of risks; safety attitudes, awareness, and knowledge; and safety responsibility. A response rate of 61% (n = 86) indicated lift truck operators had a high perception of workplace transport risks. Common lift truck incidents were considered “very serious” while respondents demonstrated a good knowledge of accident risk factors and control measures. Greater support was called for from employers and regulatory authorities to improve workplace safety. Recommendations include future safety initiatives for lift truck operators. These may be useful to organisations and enforcing authorities charged with safety obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate the relative roles of a number of influences on workplace health and safety in small firms and, more specifically, the adoption of compliance-related improvement measures. From findings drawn from a survey of over a thousand British small enterprises, marked variations in firm behaviour with respect to health and safety were found, underlining the heterogeneity of small firms in this respect, and the way such behaviour reflects their varied contexts. Factors identified as being particularly associated with a propensity to make compliance-related improvements were: regulatory enforcement activity, use of external assistance with respect to health and safety issues, enterprise size and growth performance, management training and experience, and membership of trade or business associations. Although, as a group, ethnic-minority businesses were found to be neither more or less likely to make improvements of this type compared with their white-owned counterparts, detailed analysis revealed that such variations did exist between individual ethnic groupings; variations that are themselves seen to reflect a number of factors, particularly the employment size and sectoral context. Primarily the authors conclude that inspections on the part of regulatory officials are the most important influence, although there is some scope for more innovative approaches to encouraging compliance-related improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health and safety risk faced by individual employees can be treated as an unobservable latent variable which manifests itself at workplace level through reported counts of work-related injuries and illnesses over a given interval. This paper presents results from count data regressions using data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. The findings strongly support the view that employees in larger establishments have a lower probability of being injured or falling ill. In addition, establishments with a higher proportion of unionized employees, and with health and safety committees, were associated with higher numbers of reported injuries and illnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

This article looks to the future and considers whether, in the 1990's, a point has been reached when any official injury statistics for employees in Great Britain manufacturing can provide satisfactory monitoring of improvements or otherwise in safety over time. First, the fatality rate is briefly discussed, then the rate for major injuries, then the rate for over three day injuries. Two other new sources of injury data are also briefly considered, the 1990 Labour Force Survey and the 1990 Work Industrial Relations Survey. It would seem that, for various reasons, at the end of this century greater difficulties will almost certainly stand in the way of using official time series on injuries in British manufacturing as proxies for safety performance over time than was the case in the 1980's. Even if a consistent time series for major injuries can be fashioned for future use this will only be for a limited number of years before the end of the century. It remains to be seen whether or not employers can be better persuaded to fulfill their legal duty to report injuries and thus increase the usefulness of the HSE administrative statistics. But even success in this regard could bring its own problems, for in future much thought will have to be given to whether increases in either the over three day rate or the major rate are a function of a deterioration in safety or of improved reporting.

This paper exploits the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey from 1990 (WIRS3) to examine the determinants of workplace injuries for a sample of manufacturing establishments in the UK. A key focus of this paper is an assessment of the role played by union-appointed safety representatives and joint health and safety consultative committees in reducing the frequency of workplace accidents. We find that joint consultative committees, with all employee representatives appointed by unions, significantly reduce workplace injuries relative to those establishments where the management alone determine health and safety arrangements. However, an important role is also found for those joint consultative committees where no employee representatives are appointed by unions. [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]

Perceptions of line and senior managers in relation to their role in managing workplace injury and illness were investigated with a large UK manufacturing company. The significance of this research to occupational health practitioners lies in the fact that increased understanding of the perceptions of senior and line managers is fundamental to the success of occupational safety and health programmes. Documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews were used to assess perceptions. The findings showed that the managers had a much sounder understanding of their role in injury prevention than that related to illness prevention. The way in which information relating to injury and illness data is presented to managers to aid decision making was found likely to be a fruitful area for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on industrial health and safety in Europe. The British Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has expressed concern over the increasing volume of hydrocarbon releases in the offshore industry. Figures released showed that there had been no improvement in this type of incident in 2007-2008. Among the main causes of injuries were related to slips or falls, being trapped, struck by or striking against equipment, among others. To this end, the Health & Safety At Work Etc. Act was implemented and since its introduction, safety performance has improved by over 70%. In Germany, a new version of the Chemical Law porives several guideines into German right. It aims to protect people and the envirnmental against the harmful influence of dangerous chemicals and mixtures.

Considers the remedies that are available to an employee in Great Britain who is injured at work under the Health and Safety Act 1974 and against the employer for breach of contract. Contributory negligence; Willing acceptance of the risk of harm; Statutory rights; Constructive dismissal; Criminal injury compensation through the criminal courts. INSETS: KEY POINTS;KEY POINTS.

The article discusses the aim of the partnering of the organizations Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Lloyd's Register Foundation to create the program Discovering Safety to reduce industrial injuries and fatalities in support of the organization Thomas Ashton Institute.

Accidents at work cost the NHS some billion pounds every year. Over half of these accidents are due to avoidable slips and falls-the most common cause of claim for compensation faced by the NHS. Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, the NHS as an employer and nurses as employees have a legal obligation to manage health and safety and to ensure that others are not put at risk by work-related activities. The first of a series, this article on health and safety law sets out the duties imposed on NHS organisations and their employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents questions and answers related to changes to incident reporting guidelines which have been made to Great Britain's Health and Safety Executive, including how the reporting and information line services are changing, how to access information on health and safety issues and why the executive's information line service is ending.