NEBOSH INTERNATIONAL GENERAL CERTIFICATEUnit IGC1
*
© GWG Training
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this element, you should be able to demonstrate understanding of the content through the application of knowledge to familiar and unfamiliar situations. In particular you should be able to:
Outline the scope and nature of occupational health and safety
Explain the moral, social and economic reasons for maintaining and promoting good standards of health and safety in the workplace
Explain the role of national governments and international bodies in formulating a framework for the regulation of health and safety
© GWG Training
Occupational Health and Safety
© GWG Training
What do you mean or understand by the term Health & Safety or Occupational Health & Safety or Workplace Health & Safety?
It is an area concerned with the health, safety and welfare of people engaged in work or employment.
Health has been defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely absence of disease.”
Occupational Health is a multi-disciplinary field of healthcare concerned with enabling an individual to undertake their occupation, in the way that causes least harm to their health.
© GWG Training
Barriers to Good Standards: Factors that affect providing proper HSE implementation.
Definitions: Common terms used in HSE.
© GWG Training
Multi-Disciplinary
The study of H&S involves the study of many subjects mentioned below since you need to be familiar with technical background to the H&S issue and have the relevant knowledge, standards that may apply to the workplace and possible strengths and weaknesses of the various options available to solve the problem.
Science (Chemistry/ Physics/ Biology)
Psychology (science that deals with mental processes and behaviour)
Sociology (science that deals with social behaviour, its origin and development)
Laws (local and international laws)
*
Barriers to Good Standards of H&S
Complexity of the Workplace eg. A workplace can be a complicated area when there are many people doing different work activities which needs co-ordination, there by making it complex to find a solution to a specific H&S problem/issue as it requires background knowledge and awareness of the possible consequences of the various courses of action that are available.
Conflicting Demands eg. A need to finish a project within a specified time so as to make profit and the need to do the work safely without risk to people’s health.
© GWG Training
Barriers to Good Standards of H&S
Behavioral Issues of individuals: To follow good H&S practice at workplace relies on the good behaviour of the individuals. However not all individuals behave in a good way. eg. a worker on construction site should wear hard hat to protect from overhead falling objects, but forgets to wear or deliberately does not wear the hard hat.
© GWG Training
Definitions
Health – a state of well being (absence of disease or ill-health). Can be physical ill-health due to infections from the from the work place or psychological ill-health due to work related stress.
Safety - absence of risk of serious personal injury
Welfare – access to basic facilities at workplace (toilet, rest room, dining area, drinking water, first aid etc.)
© GWG Training
© GWG Training
Environmental Protection – the prevention of damage to the environment (air, land, water and living creatures).
With reference to a workplace, the word environment would be referring to the air, temperature, humidity, ventilation, light.
Dangerous occurrences - Readily identifiable event as defined under national law and regulation, with potential to cause an injury or diseases to persons at work or the public eg fire or explosion from work activity, collapse of a scaffold
Definitions
Some students have difficulty with "some other loss".
This is usually where an organisation suffers loss because of an incident involving another organisation, for example:
*
© GWG Training
Near miss: an unplanned, unwanted event that had the potential to lead to injury or property loss but didn’t occur.
Accident: An unplanned, unwanted event which leads to ill-health, injury, death or property loss.
Note the difference between a Near Miss and an Accident.
Incident: it is a situation that leads to an event (near miss or accident).
Definitions
Some students have difficulty with "some other loss".
This is usually where an organisation suffers loss because of an incident involving another organisation, for example:
*
Incident, Near Miss, Accident
Eg. someone leaves a ladder leaning in a dangerous position and it falls over:
Causing no injury and no damage to property
Causing injury and no damage to property
Causing injury and damage to property
Incident: leaving ladder in dangerous position.
Near miss: ladder falls, no injury and no damage.
Accident: ladder falls, has injury and/or damage
Definitions
Some students have difficulty with "some other loss".
This is usually where an organisation suffers loss because of an incident involving another organisation, for example:
*
© GWG Training
Work related ill-health: Harm to worker’s health caused by their work.
Commuting Accident: An accident to a worker that occurs when they travel to or from the work place to their rest place/home.
Hazard: something that has the potential to cause harm eg. knife, wet floor, electricity.
Risk: The likelihood of a hazard that will cause harm in combination with the severity of injury, property damage that may occur.
Risk = Likelihood X Severity
Some students have difficulty with "some other loss".
This is usually where an organisation suffers loss because of an incident involving another organisation, for example:
*
Group Syndicate Exercise
Why might the management of an organisation not consider Health & Safety to be a priority?
© GWG Training
Ignorance of legal duties
Focus on output and profitability at expense of worker well-being
Cost to the business – taking a short-term view
Ignorance of true cost to the business of worker ill-health
Competition within the business for access to limited funds
Unwillingness or lack of resources to devote time to H&S management
Failure to perceive hazards in their operations
Cavalier attitude to the management of risks
Any other or similar reasons, usually associated with a narrow view of 'business management' or lack of humanitarian considerations. Answers at this stage should be directed towards legal, moral and financial reasons without actually declaring the next phase of the element.
© GWG Training
Requires time and resources
Ignorance of legal duties
This is taken from revision question in the notes
Competes with other business priorities such as production, which are the main aims of the organisation
May be seen as an unproductive cost to the business
Ignorance of legal duties
Focus on output and profitability at expense of worker well-being
Cost to the business – taking a short-term view
Ignorance of true cost to the business of worker ill-health
Competition within the business for access to limited funds
Unwillingness or lack of resources to devote time to H&S management
Failure to perceive hazards in their operations
Cavalier attitude to the management of risks
Any other or similar reasons, usually associated with a narrow view of 'business management' or lack of humanitarian considerations. Answers at this stage should be directed towards legal, moral and financial reasons without actually declaring the next phase of the element.
© GWG Training
Outline the barriers that prevent good health and safety practices to be followed at a workplace?
Give the meaning of the terms
Health
Safety
Welfare
Accident
1 – complexity, conflicting demands, behavioural issues
*
© GWG Training
Unit IGC1
Element 1.2
Reasons for Maintaining and Promoting Good Standards of Health and Safety
© GWG Training
Global statistics from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) states that:
270 million occupational accidents and 160 million occupational diseases are recorded every year
2 million fatalities from occupational accidents and occupational diseases every year
4% of global gross domestic product (GDP) is lost due to costs arising from absence, injury and death
355,000 on-the-job fatalities each year namely in agriculture, construction, fishing industries etc.
*
Why should an organisation manage H&S?
Moral (societal) reasons: Many people get sick/injured/killed by their work. Morally this is not acceptable because people go to work to earn for their livelihood and to feed their family members and not to get sick or injured or die.
Therefore employers have a moral responsibility to provide the employees with safe and healthy working conditions.
© GWG Training
© GWG Training
Social (legal) reasons: There are laws (international and national) that govern the way a business has to be conducted with regard to H&S. The legal responsibility for H&S at work rest on the employer. Therefore an employer should provide a safe place of work, safe plant and equipment, safe systems of work, training, supervision and competent employees. Failure of these can lead to enforcement action by the authority or prosecution in court.
*
© GWG Training
An employee at your workplace has been seriously injured in a workplace accident.
In groups, list the possible effects and implications of this accident on:
The injured employee
Injured Employee
Pain and suffering, lost time/wages, impact on family, ongoing impact on work
The Company
Payment of sick pay, overtime cover for employee, recruitment costs for replacement, insurance claims, fines/prosecutions, increased insurance premiums
The Line manager
Loss of skills from team, time spent for retraining the replaced employees, effect of overtime cover on shifts
Group Syndicate Exercise - Answers
A country’s own health and safety standards.
Health and safety law is usually based on:
*
Safe place of work
Safe plant and equipment
Safe systems of work
Training, supervision and competent staff
*
Who's Responsible for Health & Safety?
Safe place of work: an employer should provide a workplace that is safe without risk to health, has easy access to and from the workplace.
Safe plant and equipment: an employer should provide machinery, tools, plant and equipment that are safe to use and without health risk.
*
Who's Responsible for Health & Safety?
Training: an employer must provide training to employees so that they are aware of the hazards and the risk involved in the work, the safe systems of work and the emergency procedures.
Supervision: An employer should supervise the workers to ensure that the workers are doing their work with minimal risk to themselves and to others.
Competent staff: An employer should ensure that all workers, supervisors and managers are competent in their work.
*
The Business Case for Health & Safety
Accidents and ill-health cost money. This cost is a loss to an organisation which may be recoverable through insurance and some may not recovered through insurance.
Costs as a result of accidents and ill-health can be classified as:
Direct costs- measurable costs arising directly from accidents
Indirect costs - arise as a consequence of the event but may not directly involve money. Often difficult to quantify and identify. The cost may also be very high.
*
Identify potential
Group Discussion
© GWG Training
Fines in criminal courts
Compensation payable to the injured/deceased, which will be paid through the insurance thereby increasing the insurance premiums
First aid treatment
Worker sick pay
Lost or damaged products
• Fines in the criminal courts.
• Compensation payable to the victim, which is likely to be met by insurance cover and will therefore result in an increase in insurance premiums.
• First aid treatment.
• Worker sick pay.
• Lost or damaged product.
• Overtime to make up for lost time.
• Costs associated with the rehabilitation of the injured worker and their return to work.
Examples of indirect costs:
• Loss of staff from productive duties in order to investigate the incident, prepare reports, undertake hospital visits, deal with relatives, attend court proceedings.
• Loss of staff morale (which impacts on productivity, quality and efficiency).
• Cost of remedial action following an investigation, e.g. change of process or materials and/or the introduction of further control measures.
• Compliance with any enforcement notice served.
• Cost of recruiting and training temporary or replacement labour.
• General difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff as an indirect result of the accident.
• Loss of goodwill of customers following delays in production and fulfilling orders.
• Activation of penalty clauses for failing to meet delivery dates.
• Damage to public image and business reputation.
*
Overtime to the other employees to makeup for lost time
Costs associated with rehabilitation of the injured worker and their return to work
Group Discussion - Answers
• Fines in the criminal courts.
• Compensation payable to the victim, which is likely to be met by insurance cover and will therefore result in an increase in insurance premiums.
• First aid treatment.
• Worker sick pay.
• Lost or damaged product.
• Overtime to make up for lost time.
• Costs associated with the rehabilitation of the injured worker and their return to work.
Examples of indirect costs:
• Loss of staff from productive duties in order to investigate the incident, prepare reports, undertake hospital visits, deal with relatives, attend court proceedings.
• Loss of staff morale (which impacts on productivity, quality and efficiency).
• Cost of remedial action following an investigation, e.g. change of process or materials and/or the introduction of further control measures.
• Compliance with any enforcement notice served.
• Cost of recruiting and training temporary or replacement labour.
• General difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff as an indirect result of the accident.
• Loss of goodwill of customers following delays in production and fulfilling orders.
• Activation of penalty clauses for failing to meet delivery dates.
• Damage to public image and business reputation.
*
© GWG Training
Indirect costs
Loss of staff from productive duties in order to investigate the incident, prepare reports, doing hospital visits, deal with relatives of the injured, attend court proceedings
Lost time by other workers who stop work or reduce performance due to loss of morale.
Cost of remedial action following an investigation eg change of work process or materials, and/or introduction of further control measures
Cost of recruiting and training temporary or replacement worker.
Group Discussion - Answers
• Fines in the criminal courts.
• Compensation payable to the victim, which is likely to be met by insurance cover and will therefore result in an increase in insurance premiums.
• First aid treatment.
• Worker sick pay.
• Lost or damaged product.
• Overtime to make up for lost time.
• Costs associated with the rehabilitation of the injured worker and their return to work.
Examples of indirect costs:
• Loss of staff from productive duties in order to investigate the incident, prepare reports, undertake hospital visits, deal with relatives, attend court proceedings.
• Loss of staff morale (which impacts on productivity, quality and efficiency).
• Cost of remedial action following an investigation, e.g. change of process or materials and/or the introduction of further control measures.
• Compliance with any enforcement notice served.
• Cost of recruiting and training temporary or replacement labour.
• General difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff as an indirect result of the accident.
• Loss of goodwill of customers following delays in production and fulfilling orders.
• Activation of penalty clauses for failing to meet delivery dates.
• Damage to public image and business reputation.
*
© GWG Training
Indirect costs
Difficulties in recruiting and retraining staff as an indirect result of the accident
Loss of goodwill with clients following delays in production and not fulfilling delivery of orders on time
Activation of penalty clauses for failing to meet delivery dates
Damage to public image and business reputation.
Damage to industrial relations which could lead to industrial action eg strikes
Group Discussion - Answers
• Fines in the criminal courts.
• Compensation payable to the victim, which is likely to be met by insurance cover and will therefore result in an increase in insurance premiums.
• First aid treatment.
• Worker sick pay.
• Lost or damaged product.
• Overtime to make up for lost time.
• Costs associated with the rehabilitation of the injured worker and their return to work.
Examples of indirect costs:
• Loss of staff from productive duties in order to investigate the incident, prepare reports, undertake hospital visits, deal with relatives, attend court proceedings.
• Loss of staff morale (which impacts on productivity, quality and efficiency).
• Cost of remedial action following an investigation, e.g. change of process or materials and/or the introduction of further control measures.
• Compliance with any enforcement notice served.
• Cost of recruiting and training temporary or replacement labour.
• General difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff as an indirect result of the accident.
• Loss of goodwill of customers following delays in production and fulfilling orders.
• Activation of penalty clauses for failing to meet delivery dates.
• Damage to public image and business reputation.
*
Insured & Uninsured Costs/
Employers’ Liability Insurance
Insurance is done to cover some of the losses that may foreseeably occur in an organisation.
The employer will do an employers’ liability insurance so that if workers are injured or killed, there is an insurance in place to pay the worker or their dependants compensation.
Insurance will also be done to insure the premises and goods against fire.
But not all losses can be insured eg
costs incurred towards prosecution and fines in criminal courts
loss of revenue if the organisations reputation is damaged because of a major accident at the workplace.
*
Accident investigation time
Loss of business reputation
Compensation paid to workers
Legal costs (civil claims)
Civil law: branch of law concerned with compensating individuals for the wrongs done to them
*
Identify the reasons why an organisation should manage H&S?
Outline the responsibilities of an employer?
Identify the possible costs to an organisation following a workplace accident?
Identify 4 Insured and Uninsured costs?
End of Section Quiz
© GWG Training
International Labour Organisation (ILO)
Most countries are members of ILO
ILO sets international standards for H&S by publishing:
Conventions
Recommendations
*
Regulations adopted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO):
Occupational Safety and Health Convention (C155) 1981 describes a basic policy for H&S at both the national level and for the organisations.
*
These will be covered in more detail later in the element but they underpin the legal aspects of the entire course. There is no need to explain what they are at this point, just advise the group that you will be returning to them later.
© GWG Training
Employers’ Responsibilities
Article 16 of C155 identifies obligations placed on employers:
To provide workplaces, machinery, equipment and work processes that are safe and without risk to health
*
Article 10 of R164 identifies obligations placed on employers:
To provide workplaces, machinery and equipment and use work methods that are safe and no risk to health
To provide appropriate instruction, training and necessary supervision for the workers
To introduce H&S arrangements relevant to the size and nature of the undertaking
To provide PPE without charge to workers
To ensure that working hours does not adversely affect employees safety and health
To remove any extreme physical and mental fatigue
*
*
Visitors
Contractors
Neighbours
Visitors
Lawful (eg. inspectors) / unlawful (eg. thieves)
Contractors and sub-contractors
*
Warning signs should be erected, showing nature of danger and how to avoid harm.
Information on emergency procedures for visitors should be provided.
© GWG Training
Workers’ Responsibilities
Article 19 of C155 states that all workers have to co-operate with their employer so that the employer can fulfil his safety obligations.
R164 says that workers should:
Take reasonable care of their own safety and that of other people who might be affected by the things that they do and the things that they fail to do
Comply with safety instructions and procedures
Use all safety equipment properly and not to tamper with it
Report any situation which they believe could be a hazard and which they cannot themselves correct
Report any work-related accident/ill-health
Article 19 of C155 states that every worker must be:
Given adequate information on actions the employer has taken to ensure occupational safety and health
Given the right to the necessary training in occupational safety and health
Consulted by the employer on all matters of occupational safety and health relating to their work
*
Role of Enforcement Agencies
Legal and enforcement systems vary between countries because there is no global standard for enforcement of health and safety law
Each country may have enforcement agencies for health and safety law that provides advice, investigates workplace accidents and take formal enforcement action to force employers to comply with the law and start criminal proceedings against the organisations or persons that have committed offences. These agencies may include:
Fire Authority for fire safety regulations
Insurance Companies
*
Consequences of Non-Compliance
Breach of H&S legislation is usually a criminal offence. Failure to follow legal standards may lead to:
Enforcement action on an employer
To improve the workplace within a time period or
Prohibit high risk work activities until improvements are made
Prosecution of the organisation in criminal courts which can result in fines
Prosecution of individuals eg directors, managers and workers which can result in fines and/or imprisonment
Explain that the offence is usually criminal.
*
Worker brings claim against employer
Must prove employer was negligent and therefore to blame for injury/ill-health
No-fault systems
Decided by a panel of experts
No lawyers or courts
ISO 9001 – Quality Management
ISO 14001 – Environmental Management
Internationally recognised standard for Occupational Health and Safety management is OHSAS 18001 which is compatible with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001
*
Sources can be
• National codes of practice and guidance notes.
• Manufacturers’ operating instructions.
http://www.osha.gov
http://agency.osha.eu.int
http://www.hse.gov.uk
http://www.safetyline.wa.gov.au
Explain that these web addresses are contained in the course notes. They do not need to write them down.
www.iso.org/‎
© GWG Training
Identify the two main standards that the ILO has produced for health and safety and what do member countries do with these standards?
Identify the responsibilities of an employer?
Identify the responsibilities of an employee?
Identify the rights of an employee?
Identify what action could be taken against organisations breaking health and safety law?
Identify the sources of internal and external information of H&S
End of Section Quiz
This is quite tough and is a discussion point to reinforce the points.
1 – ILO has produced C155 and R164, which are then ratified by countries and implemented in national law
2 - Specifically, Article 10 of R164 puts the following obligations on employers:
• To provide workplaces and work equipment, and use work methods, which are safe and no risk to health.
• To provide appropriate instructions and training.
• To provide necessary supervision.
• To put in place health and safety arrangements adapted to suit the size and nature of the undertaking.
• To provide any necessary personal protective clothing and equipment free of charge.
• To ensure that the hours of work do not adversely affect employees’ safety and health.
• To remove any extreme physical and mental fatigue.
• To stay up-to-date with knowledge in order to comply with the above.
In this way the responsibility is placed directly on the employer. However, it is also recognised that individual workers have a critical part to play in keeping workplaces safe, so workers are also given duties.
3 - • Take reasonable care of their own safety and that of other people who might be affected by the things that they do and the things that they fail to do.
• Comply with safety instructions and procedures.
• Use all safety equipment properly and not tamper with it.
• Report any situation which they believe could be a hazard and which they cannot themselves correct.
• Report any work-related accident or ill-health.
4 - formal enforcement action (improvement or prohibition notices or similar)
- prosecution of the organisation
*