Health and Safety, NEBOSH, OSHA, IOSH, HSE.

What is breach of duty? Is this related to negligent act? The standard developed by organisation not met by individual due to his lack of duty of care is known as breach of duty. Obviously it is true that negligent act of individual lead to breach of duty. In order to prove that defendants (Usually organisations are defendants) are at fault, plaintiff (Usually Injured worker ) must prove all below elements to held liable defendant for your injuries. Juries are instructed to compare the facts, testimony, and evidence with the following elements before reaching a verdict: Duty: This duty of care existence depends on the local and national regulation/ law. Breach of Duty: Definition as above. Cause in Fact: Defendant’s act resulted into the injury. i.e. Employing unskilled workmen by organisation (defendant) for highly skill job lead to an injury to worker (Plaintiff) could prove this element. Proximate Cause: This is directly related with responsibility ...

Health and Safety Policy development is first phase of any health and safety management system. i.e. OHSAS 18001, HSG 65 etc. Health and Safety Policy formulation is Plan part of Plan, Do, Check and Act approach (PDCA) . After formulation of the Health and Safety policy organisation has to form action plan to do the tasks. This action plan will fulfill the objective of the policy. Doing with Health and Safety is a legal requirement .i.e. Health and Safety at work act 1974. Also this is an important aspect of demonstrating management commitment towards health and safety.  While formulation of Health and Safety Policy organisation consider where they want to be and which direction we should go.  Health and safety policy helps in achieving many objectives like as mention below: 1-       It helps in showing Management commitment towards health and Safety. 2-       It helps to achieve continuous impr...

OHSAS 18001 stands for Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series. It is globally accepted British standard for health and safety management system. Officially it is known BS OHSAS 18001, here BS stands for British standard. Yes it was first certified health safety management system. Organizations demanded for a unified approach and H&S certification system approach to improve health and safety. This lead to formation of an international collaboration called the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) Project Group and it was formed to create a single unified approach . The Group comprised representatives from national representative bodies , academic bodies, accreditation bodies, certification bodies and occupational safety and health institutions. BS OHSAS 18001:2007 is a health and safety management system standard.  Originally produced in 1999, it was substantially revised in 2007 with substantial input from HSE and aligns quite...

Health and safety management system is beneficial for every type of organization either they are small or big, either dealing with chemicals or transportation. Successful organizations treat Health and Safety as an integral part of business like any other part .i.e. Finance, Maintenance, Production etc. Successful o rganizations do maximum possible efforts to manage health and safety at workplace. Benefits of formal health and safety management system at workplace can be following:     1- H&S Management provides clear structure which clearly indicates who is accountable, who is    responsible for the safe doing of tasks.    2- Use of Expertise team (Multi functional team) which provides structured approach to do risk assessment. 3    3- Planned approach to do the job with respect to health and safety. 4    4- Evidence based approach with respect to health and safety. 5    5- For...

Yes, Health and Safety influenced by societal factors and these societal factors have deep influence on Health and safety.  Many factors by which health and safety itself affected are economy, innovations, developments in health and safety, technology developments, global connections .i.e. globalization, demography change, migrant workers etc. Economy effects on health and safety can be seen when organization facing money issues try to cut off health and safety funds whereas if organization is concern about health and safety then probably organization has sufficient money in pocket. So economy is directly impacting health and safety culture. Gulf countries facing financial crisis reducing H&S personnel against standard requirement. Innovation, development in technology leads to increased awareness and now we can demarcate what is harmful and what is beneficial. Like in the field of Chemical safety, with the advancement in animal testing we are able to understand ...

Definition of notice: The fact of observing or paying attention to something. First thing, Improvement and Prohibition notices are being given in health and safety related aspects at workplace.  Secondly these are type of measures of Government authorities to improve health and safety at workplace. As name suggest Improvement notice means certainly to improve and prohibition notice means immediate termination of that activity / task for which prohibition notice has been given or otherwise specified contravention has been rectified within given time frame. Both notices are legal and can lead to prosecution. Failure to follow either of notice is a punishable offence. Improvement Notice: Certainly there is a legal contravention and it is likely to continue. No risk specified and covers circumstances where there is no risk. Notice takes effect when specified but not earlier than 21 days after issue. Effect of appeal -Suspension of notice until appeal is determined. Notice w...

Safety inspection is a structured process generally carried out at workplace for hazard identification like planned inspection in an organization. It is followed by checklist or non checklist method , Multidisciplinary team based approach, on scheduled intervals, compliance review and further action planning. It helps in identifying potential hazards at the workplace and mitigation of same in time bounded manner. Safety audit means verifying the effectiveness of Health and Safety management system in an organization. It measures actual implementation of Health and safety standard against the standard. It is also followed by standard Health and safety management system .i.e OHSAS 18001 etc, multidisciplinary team based, periodic, compliance review and feedback loop for further decision making by top management. It helps in identification of potential gaps in health and safety management system of the organization.

Equally important three reasons are behind managing health and safety at workplace. These are as below: 1  -         Moral, 2  -        Financial and 3  -       Legal reasons Moral reasons: Every individual has right to work in safe workplace while performing his assigned task. He comes to a workplace in happy mode and expects to return in a same manner. Same time individual has a duty to follow all health and safety norms so as to save him as well as prevent injury to others by his acts. Here come two things “Duty of Care” and “Negligent act”. Duty of care is an obligation to exercise a level of care towards an individual that is reasonable in all circumstances to avoid injury to that individual and to his belongings. Negligent act is not intentionally but careless act which results into loss. Only Negligent act is regarded as a breach of “duty of care...

Monitoring of workplace is one of the important tasks under Managing Health and Safety. Managing risks is very important and what is going right, what is going wrong can be known to assessor if he is doing monitoring in right sense. Doing monitoring either for sake of compliance or only filling papers for audit will not serve any purpose. Meaningful, planned, method based monitoring will help you to lead the organization in true sense in terms of health and safety. This will also lead to improved morale of workforce (as they believe that you are caring by monitoring performance), acceptance and ease in decision making and invent or develop right techniques to manage health and safety. Feedback loop must be provided in Monitoring system and to the right level, so that correct decision making can be done by the analyzer on the basis of data collected. Two very popular methods commonly used in health and safety are Active and Reactive methods . Active method means doing before t...

Biological monitoring is a way of assessing chemical exposures by measuring the chemical or its breakdown products in a biological sample (usually urine, blood or breath). https://www.hsl.gov.uk Metabolites (substances the body converts the chemical into) in exposed workers. These measurements are made on samples of breath, urine or blood, or any. combination of these. ... chemicals that can be assessed by biological monitoring. Biological monitoring in the workplace is being done to diagnose internal dose of harmful chemicals. Ref: www.hse.gov.uk We do this at workplace to diagnose any adverse effects on the body of worker. To understand the level of exposure one has received during his workplace activities. Advantages of Biological monitoring are as follows: - It helps in assessing exposure and harmful effects of chemical received by a worker by all routes .i.e Inhalation through breath, absorption through skin, intake through mouth etc....

Mechanism of Steam explosion: Violent  boiling of water into steam due to either super heated water or rapidly heated by fine hot debris generate within it or with the interaction of molten metal. Water changes into gas quickly and exponentially in volume. Due to steam explosion spray of boiling hot water or steam happens which ultimately lead to hot burn. If anyone tries to contain the same steam or boiling hot water then probability of over pressure and rupture of containment exist. Examples of processes where Steam explosion can happen are Hot meal in Cement industries when interacts water creates steam explosion, Molten material in aluminum, steel industries when interacts with water, steam explosion in steam turbine etc.

Is BLEVE caused by failure of pressurized systems? What is the process of BLEVE? Yes, BLEVE (Boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion) caused by failure of pressurized systems. BLEVE happens when vessel filled with pressurized liquid above its boiling point ruptured and release explosive contents. Process of BLEVE is as mentioned below: 11 -       Vessel liquid heats up due to external heat source. 22 -       Vessel wall suffer excess vapor pressure. 33 -       Vapor moves out from vessel through safety vent/ safety relief valve etc. 44 -       Vessel liquid boils as continue receive external heat. 55 -       Vessel wall will rupture due to thermal shock. 66 -       Explosion of pressure wall. 77 -       Released vapor will form the cloud. 88       Vapor cloud...

Safety nets are often used as a passive protection device to prevent fall from height injuries. However one must think about the ideal and non ideal conditions while using Safety Nets. Construction sector/ industry is most vulnerable with respect to Work at Height Falls. Many researches have evaluated the effectiveness of Safety Nets . Many reasons lead to poor effectiveness of Safety nets in field. Some reasons are as below: 1- Preexisting damage in the Safety nets i.e due to storage, transportation and handling issues. 2- Damage due to sharp edge material fall on the Safety nets. 3- Poor installation practice.i.e Too much tension or too much Sag. 4- Type of Safety net material. 5- Repeated loading on the Safety nets at same point/ position. 6- Hidden defects in the Safety nets. 7- Ageing of Safety nets. 8- In use damage like Use adjacent to Hot objects, use in sunlight or in water.i.e Both lead to degradation of polymer (Safety net). 9- Po...

Anyone who is working himself and without direct supervision is known as Lone worker. Eg. People working in remote shops, patrol pumps, courier boys etc. Is there any law in support of Lone working? No not any such specific law is present for lone working however all health and safety legislation indirectly applicable to lone working. For eg. Health and Safety at work act 1974 made responsible employer to provide & ensure health, safety and welfare of employees. Requirements of safe system of works, H&S policies, IITS (information, instruction, training and supervision). Management of Health and Safety at work regulations 1999 require employers to make suitable and sufficient risk assessments of risks to their employees. Similarly indirect requirements posed by some other legislation which are ;  The Workplace ( Health ,  Safety and Welfare) Regulations   1992,  RIDDOR,  The  Health and Safety  ( First-Aid ) Regulations 1981 ...