HEALTHY WORKPLACES: GOOD FOR YOU, GOOD FOR BUSINESS

Healthy Workplaces is a two-year campaign which aims to promote a management approach to risk assessment.

The two-year campaign seeks to convey clearly that risk assessment is a step-by-step examination of all aspects of work undertaken.

Risk assessment need not necessarily be complicated, bureaucratic or a task only for experts.

Why Risk Assessment?

Every 3.5 minutes, somebody in the EU dies from work-related causes!

167,000 deaths are caused each year as a result of either work-related accidents (7,500) or occupational diseases e.g. asbestosis (159,500).

Every 4.5 seconds, a worker in the EU is involved in an accident that forces him/her to stay at home for at least 3 working days ie more that 7 million accidents a year.

Source: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.

These all come at huge costs:

• Human costs
• Business costs
• Costs for society

A prevention approach based on risk assessment aims to put measures in place to prevent such accidents and diseases.

What is a risk assessment?

Risk assessment is the process of evaluating health and safety risks arising from hazards in the workplace.

A hazard is anything that may cause harm e.g. chemicals, electricity, machinery and equipment, an open drawer, aspects of work organisation, etc.

The risk is the chance or probability, high or low, that somebody could be harmed by these or other hazards.

A risk assessment is therefore a careful and systematic examination of all aspects of the work undertaken to consider what could cause injury or harm, whether the hazards could be eliminated and, if not, what preventive or protective measures are, or should be, in place to control the risks.

Employers’ duties

Employers in each workplace have a moral duty and a legal responsibility to ensure the safety and health of workers. A risk assessment enables effective measures to be put in place to protect the safety and health of workers.

These include:

• Preventing occupational risks
• Providing information and training to workers
• Putting in place the organisation and means to implement the necessary measures.

A risk assessment will help employers and other people responsible to:

1. Identify the hazards in the workplace and those at risk
2. Evaluate the risks associated with those hazards
3. Determine what measures should be taken to protect the safety and health of employees and others
4. Put in place the preventive and protective measures
5. Monitor and review whether the measures in place are working

What is Lisburn City Council doing as part of the campaign?

The campaign will run throughout 2008 and 2009 and features two European Weeks of Safety and Health, in October 2008 and October 2009.

During this year’s European Week of Safety and Health, which starts 20 October 2008, Lisburn City Council Environmental Health Officers will be participating in a province wide initiative by visiting premises in the area to carry out a risk assessment inspection which will focus particularly on vulnerable workers i.e. those whose first language is not English and young workers in catering and retail premises.

Recent work done by Environmental Health Officers in Northern Ireland has shown that the most common languages encountered in the workplace are Polish, Lithuanian and Romanian and that there is a concentration of these migrant workers in the catering and retail industries.

Employers will be offered information and assistance to fulfil their legal requirement to carry out risk assessments.

This will be followed up with a risk assessment workshop for employers in 2009.

Lisburn City Council is also liaising with local secondary level schools and colleges to promote risk assessment by providing a quiz based lesson plan for children. This will help equip students with knowledge of risk assessment requirements, which they need to be aware of when they go on work placement or are employed as workers. For more information telephone the Environmental Health Unit on 028 9250 9394.

Who else can take part in the campaign?

The campaign is open to all organisations and individuals at local, national and European level, including:

• Employers
• Managers, supervisors and workers
• Trades unions and safety representatives
• Health and Safety professionals
• Education providers

How can you get involved?

On the campaign website at http://osha.europa.eu/ you will find a wide variety of campaign material in 22 EU languages e.g. fact sheets, good practice case studies, cartoon videos, links to related sites.

The Health and Safety Executive website www.hse.gov.uk/risk also has lots of information on practical steps to protect people from risks. Example risk assessments for various workplaces are also available to download at www.hse.gov.uk/risk/casestudies.

The EU – Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) has put in place a number of channels and actions to give visibility to those who get involved in the Healthy Workplaces campaign.  There are two levels:

·       Participation: Everyone involved in the campaign can download a Certificate of Participation to print and display, along with an online flash banner for your website

·       Partnership: You can be recognised as an official partner of the Healthy Workplaces campaign and as an organisation dedicated to occupational safety and health at work. The partner status gives you a Partner Certificate, promotion through the official partner and events section on the campaign website, recognition in the campaign press releases and at the campaign events at European and national level.

You can register interest at http://osha.europa.eu/en/campaigns/hw2008/partners.

If you have any further questions or need more information please contact Lisburn City Council Environmental Health Unit on Tel:028 9250 9394 or email: ehealth@lisburn.gov.uk.