Health and Safety

How Boring is Health and Safety?

We all know that health and saftey is boring, It seems like common sense and just a lot of red tape to get in the way of us doing our jobs. The fact is that the two main bodies who implement health and safety :
The Health and Safety Commission (HSC)
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
collect statistical information about accidents that happen in the work place and know what steps to implement that will have the greatest of impact.
Here is an example : The greatest number of deaths and serious injuries in the construction industry are caused by falls from height, so there is a lot of legislation surrounding the use of ladders and platforms and approved safe ways of working. The majority of Accidents happen when you take undue risks trying to cut corners or save time i.e leaning too far off your ladder rather than climb down and move it.

- If you dont want to catch disease, get hurt, hurt others or die then you need to make sure that your H & S practise is perfect.

So you think that plumbings not that dangerous?

Exact figures for plumbing accidents alone are not available. They are all lumped together as the construction industry but last year (09/10) alone 12% of accidents of which 42 were fatalities. More people get injured in UK construction than in any other industry. Construction accounted for 35% (276 cases) of all reported injuries involving high falls and 24.8% (89) involving electricity. for a summary of the hse statistics for construction industry go here

The statistics show: if you work in construction and you work up a ladder OMG you had better be careful!!!!

If these statistics alone haven't convinced you to take Health and Safety seriously then look on the next pages. There are pictures of injuries that can and have happened to plumbers or as a consequence of a plumbers mal-practice.