Hampshire County Council annual health and safety report for 2002 - 2003
Introduction
Risks
Development
Plans
for 2004
Table of reported accidents, incidents and dangerous occurrences
Introduction
This is the first annual health and safety report produced by Hampshire County Council for public information. The report aims to provide the public in Hampshire and those interested in health and safety with information on what the County Council is doing to protect its employees, volunteers, contractors, clients and service users, pupils and members of the public.
Health and safety in the County Council is part of the overall Risk Management Strategy, which aims to identify and manage all risks to the Council and its services. Health and safety focuses on the risks of injury and ill health that can arise from the wide range of work activities necessary to deliver the services to the people of Hampshire.
Risks
The types of health and safety risks are involved are varied and can include:
Lone working
Violence and aggression
Transport and road risk
Manual handling injuries
Slips and falls
Ill health including stress
An organisation with such a broad range of work activities as the County Council has a wide variety of potential work risks to manage and the above list represents only some of the risks common across the organisation. To ensure that all risks are identified and managed, the Council has extensive risk assessment processes.
Our services are often delivered via partnership arrangements. These can include a wide range of external organisations such as the NHS, charities, contractors and volunteers. By focussing on co-operation, communication and co-ordination with our partners we aim to ensure that these operations are also managed as safely as is reasonably practicable.
To support management, the County Council employs a number of specialists including Health and Safety Advisers, Occupational Health specialists, Counsellors who provide a counselling service for employees, Occupational Hygienists, and a Fire Safety specialist. In the workplace, a large number of health and safety representatives, both trade union and non-trade union, help monitor health and safety and represent employees during consultation.
Development
Each year work takes place to improve health and safety and is focussed at three key levels in the organisation. At the most senior level of management there is work to provide corporate policies and standards for all parts of the organisation. At a departmental level the corporate policies and standards are integrated into Departmental management systems and procedures to cover all work activities. The third level is at the workplace, where action is focussed on safe working and includes training, auditing and inspections.
Each year there are health and safety improvement programmes run across the Council. In 2002/3 there were a range of initiatives and programmes a few of which are listed below:
Conferences for Safety Representatives
Training on personal safety
Training on the role of designers and engineers in construction safety
Initiatives run to improve safety in the areas of display screen equipment and workplace transport
A campaign run on work related stress to coincide with the European Week for Safety and Health
Introduction of a number of externally accredited safety training courses
An audit programme for all secondary schools
Plans for 2004
For the year 2003/4 the key improvement programmes include:
A two year programme to introduce new premises safety arrangements including additional training
A three year programme to audit all primary and special schools
A strengthening of the safety management structure and development of the role of safety “Champions” in Departments.
Introduction of a top level audit process to measure the performance of the safety management systems
Table of reported accidents, incidents and dangerous occurrences
The Council has a robust accident reporting and computer based recording system that has now been in place for 2 years and key data from that system is set out below. Some data is not currently available but has been included to show what should be available in future reports.
2001/02 |
2002/03 |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Total number of incidents reported to the HSE |
147 |
174 |
|
Injuries causing over 3 day absences from work |
51 |
50 |
|
Major injuries |
10 |
7 |
|
Fatalities |
0 |
0 |
|
Reportable dangerous occurrences |
3 |
4 |
|
Reportable work related illnesses |
1 |
1 |
|
Days lost due to work related injuries |
Not available |
Not available |
|
Days lost due to work related ill health |
Not available |
Not available |
|
Incidence Rate for over 3 day injuries |
244.04 |
207.82 |
|
Incidence Rate for major injuries |
47.85 |
29.10 |
|
Number of attendees at health and safety training courses (internal). |
3,725 |
3,933 |