1. Health and Safety Policy / Statement of intent
It is the policy of Calibration Engineering Services Ltd (CES) to seek to provide as far as reasonably practical, safe and healthy working conditions for employees and to ensure that any work undertaken by CES does not adversely affect the health and safety of other persons.
The aims and objectives of the policy are:-
To promote and maintain a standard of safety, health, and welfare which comply fully with the Health and Safety Act 1974 and other relevant legislation and codes of practice.
To protect employees and others, including the public, from foreseeable work hazards. Please refer to the risk assessments.
To ensure that safety awareness is developed by all employees to take care of themselves and others.
To encourage consultation and co-operation between employees and management on any aspect of health and safety.
It is the function of Management to provide the right circumstances under which all operations may be safely carried out. This in turn places a legal duty of care on all employees to take reasonable care for their own Health & Safety and Welfare and for that of fellow workers; the general public amongst others; and to co-operate with the Management in pursuit of creating safe working conditions.
The Company will actively foster and maintain close links with clients, suppliers, sub-contractors, the Health & Safety Executive to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable that Health, Safety and Welfare proceedings and practices not only comply with the black letter of the law, but embrace best practice and the spirit of the overall aims of legislation. The Management of the Company in this respect will set a good example to all personnel under its control and foster a positive culture within the Company towards Health & Safety.
Health & Safety At Work Act 1974
The Company has a statutory duty to observe the provisions of Section 2(3) of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, and Regulation 3 of the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999. In the respect of employees, well being is of paramount importance to the Company and as such a safe and clean working environment will be provided as far as is reasonably practical at all times, embracing the main principle of the Act.
Common Law
Under common law the Company recognises its duties to provide (a) competent staff (b) a safe place of work (c) a safe system of work and (d) provision of proper equipment. Employees must be aware that their actions or omissions in the above regard could give rise to vicarious liability to the Company or themselves. An employee carrying out an authorised task in an unauthorised manner could well give rise to liability; embarking on an unauthorised task, which results in personal injury, will almost certainly incur liability.
These common law duties are over-arched by the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (as amended) (risk assessment approach) and the Provision of and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (as amended) and the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (as amended).
The Director of CES has the overall responsibility for Health and Safety, and for taking all reasonable steps to ensure that adequate resources are made available, to maintain a suitable working environment. The Director will delegate to each individual, who will be responsible for the implementation of the policy content in the area for which she/he has personal responsibility.
All employees are responsible for the following:
i) When working on customer’s premises to report to the authorised person on that site.
ii) Will work to and abide by the customer’s working practices on their premises.
iii) Will ensure that work activities within their sphere of responsibilities are undertaken in a safe manner.
iv) To ensure that all articles such as guards, protective equipment etc. and substances such as cleaners etc. are available and are used to maintain safe working procedures.
v) Understand and follow risk assessments.
vi) To maintain a high standard of housekeeping within his/her operation, in order that access and egress is always maintained.
vii) To seek advice from the director responsible on any matters where there maybe some doubt concerning the provision of a safe working environment.
viii)Every company vehicle to have a first aid kit
ix) To report all incidents/accidents and unsafe systems to the Director.
2. Arrangements for implementing policy
The Company is committed to a continuous on and off the job training programme so that employees understand their personal responsibilities for Health & Safety at Work. Employees are actively encouraged to put forward ideas that they consider will improve specific or general areas of Health, Safety and welfare.
All employees, upon commencement of employment, will receive an induction of Basic Health and Safety principles as it relates to their particular remit and sphere of operations. This will be updated as and when new legislation or working practices is brought in. In any event periodical “refreshers” will be held at regular intervals.
The following regulations will be implemented when/where relevant:
PROVISION AND USE OF WORK EQUIPMENT REGULATIONS 1998 (PUWER) (AS AMENDED)
The Company will ensure its duties under the Regulations are strictly adhered to. This includes inter alia the construction or adaptation of work equipment as to be suitable for which use it is provided; the regular maintenance of equipment (in line with manufacturers recommendations) to ensure efficient working order and good state of repair. Thorough and regular inspections will be carried out by competent persons. Maintenance logs will be kept up to date.
THE LIFTING OPERATIONS AND LIFTING EQUIPMENT REGULATIONS 1998 (LOLER) (AS AMENDED)
Under the Regulations the Company has a duty to ensure inter alia the strength and suitability, positioning and installation, Company of lifting operations, and the thorough examination and inspection of all lifting equipment. The latter to be carried out by competent persons.
MANUAL HANDLING OPERATIONS REGULATIONS 1992 (AS AMENDED)
The Company will provide specific instructions for the correct approach to the moving or carrying of objects by hand or bodily force that cannot be otherwise moved by mechanical means.
THE CONTROL OF NOISE AT WORK REGULATIONS 2005
The Company has a responsibility not to expose employees to sustained high levels of noise. Any tasks falling into this category will be the subject of a suitable risk assessment and a working method statement provided.
THE CONTROL OF SUBSTANCES HAZARDOUS TO HEALTH REGULATIONS 2002 (COSHH) (AS AMENDED)
All substances used by the Company in any areas of its operations and those used by independent contractors (ie such as cleaners) will be the subject of a formal COSHH assessment which will record the appropriate precautions required.
CHEMICALS (HAZARD INFORMATION AND PACKAGING FOR SUPPLY) REGULATIONS (CHIP2) 2002
The Company will only use approved suppliers and ensure they classify label and package dangerous chemicals and provide safety data sheets for them.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT 1990
The Company actively fosters all methods of best practice to ensure its activities, as far as is reasonably practicable, have as little affect as possible on the environment as a whole.
ELECTRICITY AT WORK REGULATIONS 1989
The Company recognises and will discharge its duties to ensure competent people control the electrical systems within the works and that they are maintained and inspected at regular intervals.
HEALTH & SAFETY (FIRST AID) REGULATIONS 1981
Due to the mobile nature of the business the Company will ensure that customers’ worksites attended by CES Ltd engineers have sufficient numbers of staff trained in First Aid techniques.
THE REGULATORY REFORM (FIRE SAFETY) ORDER 2005
Under these regulations the Company will fully subscribe to the continuation of the principles of fire prevention. Due to the mobile nature of the business, engineers visiting customers’ worksites must be informed of Fire Safety arrangements during induction/signing in on site.
3. Planning and implementation of internal procedures
i) Risk assessments are carried out to reduce/eliminate hazards on both internal and external work sites attended by CES Staff or sub-contractors.
ii) On identification of a potential hazard, the risk will be graded according to the severity of the outcome and the frequency with which it is likely to be encountered.
iii) Once the risk is graded, preventative actions that can be taken to eliminate or reduce the risk are identified.
iv) When all feasible preventative actions are identified, the risk is re-graded taking into consideration the effect of performing the task whilst adopting the preventative actions. The ideal is to eliminate the risk completely but to, at a minimum, reduce the risk by one level e.g. from medium to low.
v) In the event of identifying a high risk/high frequency hazard, consideration will be given to whether the activity can be performed in attendance of a Health and Safety Specialist or whether the activity should not take place at all.
vi) All staff are provided with appropriate PPE (PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT AT WORK REGULATIONS 1992 (PPE) (AS AMENDED) and it is a condition of employment that PPE provided must be utilised where it is deemed essential to the safety of the individual/staff. A record of PPE issued with dates and signatures (see table below).
The Company recognises it duties under the Regulations and will provide free of charge all personal protective clothing as necessary to protect the employee against one or more risks to his or her health and safety and against adverse climatic conditions that could otherwise adversely effect their health and safety. Again each operation the Company undertakes will be assessed for potential or real risks and PPE matched to it accordingly.
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4. Emergency procedures
i) Due to the nature of the work, staff often travel/work alone and therefore each engineer is issued with emergency procedures for each type of work they carry out.
ii) To ensure the safety of mobile staff, regular checks are made from the office by mobile telephone to establish that they have arrived at their expected destination in sound health. In the event of being unable to contact an engineer, the office will track the activity back to the last known attended site. The emergency services will be notified of any member of staff deemed missing due to lack of communication or unexpected absence should this exceed 8 hours of expected time of arrival.
iii) All mobile staff are provided with First Aid Kits and Fire extinguishers in company vehicles.
5. Accident reporting and investigation procedure
(REPORTING OF INJURIES, DISEASES AND DANGEROUS OCCURANCES REGULATIONS 1995 (RIDDOR))
It is important that employees understand that not only injuries, but also circumstances and incidents that arise which could have resulted in injury must be reported to the responsible person within the Company so that the Health & Safety Executive can be informed accordingly.
i) All staff are responsible for reporting incidents (near misses)/accidents or unsafe working systems to the Director.
ii) In the case of an incident or near miss the Director, together with the Operations Manager, will record and investigate the occurrence and update Risk Assessment documents if it is deemed that the incident could have been avoided by taking action to reduce the risk. The amended risk assessments are presented to engineers during a training update which will include the new working method.
iii) In the case of an accident not reportable under RIDDOR, the accident will be entered in the Accident Book and the cause investigated by the Director and Operations Manager. The same process will be followed as in ii) above.
iv) If an investigation reveals that near misses/accidents are due to unsafe working practice(s) or faulty equipment, the Director will issue immediate instructions to halt work in that area of service until a safe resolution is reached.
v) Notifiable Accidents and/or Reportable diseases are managed using the RIDDOR directive.
6. Risk assessments of work activities
All activities within the Company's sphere of operations will be the subject of a Hazard Analysis/Risk Assessment to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, a safe place and system of work. A hazard is defined as something with the potential to cause personal harm. The risk is the combination of the severity of the harm with the likelihood of it happening. The approach in all cases will be to, as far as is reasonably practicable, to provide a system of work that will totally eliminate the risk or reduce it to acceptable levels.
Please find enclosed examples of Risk Assessments. This is not an exhaustive sample as new Risk Assessments are carried out as and when new hazards/working locations/equipment etc are added to the portfolio
7. Monitoring, Review of Systems and Audit
THE MANAGEMENT OF HEALTH & SAFETY AT WORK REGULATIONS 1999 (AS AMENDED)
Under its responsibilities flowing from Section 7(8) of the above regulations the Company has appointed Alan Crisp – Director as having responsibility for Health & Safety Welfare matters along with external consultants as/when appointed. In the first instance matters relating to Health & Safety will be dealt with/referred to Alan Crisp.
The Company has a rolling programme of audit and review of all Health & Safety procedures, which will include active and re-active monitoring. All standards adopted will be measurable, achievable and realistic. Employees will be kept informed of all significant developments/results in this respect.
8. New procedure for commercial torque wrench calibration
At the review meeting 13th July 2012 it was agreed that a new procedure for the calibration of Commercial torque wrenches should be adopted and published.
All engineers have been given instruction as to this procedure – see document reference WI-Commercial-TW.