IOSH Managing Safely Course

The IOSH Managing Safely course is a nationally and internationally recognised and respected training course for managers and supervisors. At Amalgamate, we pride ourselves on delivering professional and personal training solutions that make a positive difference to your business.

In our eyes, providing high quality training is an opportunity for organisations to reduce their risk and ensure that their workforce, no matter what size, is productive, motivated and safe. So we are pleased to offer the IOSH Managing Safely course to you.

Who should attend Managing Safely?

Managing Safely is for managers and supervisors in any sector and any organisation. It’s designed to get managers up to speed on the practical actions they need to take to handle health and safety in their teams.

What will employees get out of it?

Successful delegates are awarded an IOSH Managing Safely certificate. Managing Safely won’t turn delegates into safety experts, but it will give them the knowledge and tools to tackle the health and safety issues they’re responsible for.

Importantly, it brings home just why health and safety is such an essential part of their job, and demonstrates what they need to know in a refreshingly informal way.

What will employers get out of it?

Nationally recognised and respected certificated training for their managers and supervisors.
Peace of mind offered by training that’s designed and quality-controlled by the Chartered body for health and safety professionals.
Flexibility – the programme can be delivered to suit the business
Two key areas – health and safety and environmental basics – are covered in a single programme.

What will the course cover?

Introduction to managing safely
Assessing risks
Controlling risks
Understanding your responsibilities
Identifying hazards
Investigating accidents and incidents
Measuring performance
Protecting your environment

Duration: 4 days + exam

To book a place on this course or to find out more, please email training@amalgamate-safety.com or phone 0141 244 0181.

IOSH Working Safely course – helping your team stay safe

At Amalgamate, we pride ourselves on delivering professional and personal training solutions that make a positive difference to your business. We firmly believe that providing high quality training provides a chance for organisations to reduce their risk and ensure that their workforce, no matter what size, is productive, motivated and safe. Therefore we are pleased to offer the industry-leading IOSH Working Safely one day course.

Who should go on an IOSH Working Safely course?

Our Working Safely course is for people at any level, in any sector, needing grounding in the essentials of health and safety. Everyone at work should have an understanding of why they must ‘work safely’ – and this course offers exactly that.

What will employees get out of it?

What they need to know about safety in the workplace, presented in a refreshingly informal way. Working safely isn’t supposed to turn delegates into safety experts. It focuses on why health and safety is important, and how individuals can make a real difference to the wellbeing of themselves and others through changing their behaviour.

What will employers get out of it?

Nationally recognised and respected certificated training for their teams;
Peace of mind offered by training that’s designed and quality-controlled by the Chartered body for health and safety;
Minimum disruption to working days – the one-day programme includes the assessment, so there’s no need to free up further time for a test after the course;
Two key areas – health and safety and environmental basics – are covered in a single self-contained session.

What will the course cover?

Introduction to working safely
Defining hazards and risk
Identifying common hazards
Improving safety performance
Protecting our environment

To book a place on an IOSH Working Safely course or to find out more about our range of training courses, call us on +44 (0)141 244 0181 or email info@amalgamate-safety.com.

Thomas Elliott joins the Amalgamate team

We’re very pleased to have Thomas Elliott joining Amalgamate as a Senior Health and Safety Consultant this week.

Thomas brings a wealth of experience with him from 14 years of working in Health & Safety, in both the private and public sectors.

He will be providing health, safety and fire services, with an emphasis on understanding the business needs of clients, and designing management systems and training strategies to meet their exact requirements. We’re confident that he will be a great asset to the team, and we’re looking forward to working alongside him. Welcome to the team Thomas!

Helping Great Britain to work well

It’s great that 2016 starts with a big focus on Health and Safety, and to see the HSE’s new GB Health and Safety strategy being launched this month.

Have you been engaged yet?

We can all influence the discussion. The HSE has started to engage with the people and organisations that can help Great Britain work well.

We think that if sucessfully implemented, this could enhance how we all approach safety management in this country for many years to come. The 6 key themes are:

Promoting broader ownership of workplace health and safety
Highlighting and tackling the burden of work-related ill-health
Supporting small firms
Enabling productivity through proportionate risk management
Anticipating and tackling the challenges of new technology and ways of working
Sharing the benefits of Great Britain’s approach

Further details can be found by visiting the HSE website

We’re always interested in hearing your thoughts, so why not tell us what you think about the six themes?

If you would like to know more about how Amalgamate can help your organisation lead the way in Health and Safety, contact Annette McKie on e: annette@amalgamate-safety.com or call +44 (0)7808 381228

HSE Statistics

The Health and Safety Executive have published their statistics for this year, and revealed the shocking number of people still being injured or made sick by their work.

Some key figures include:

1.2 million people suffering from a work-related illness
611,000 injuries at work
142 people killed at work

Although workplace health and safety has improved over time, there is still much more to be done to ensure that everyone gets to go home healthy and safe at the end of the day.

Read the ‘At a Glance’ Guide to the Statistics here or the HSE Full Annual Report here.

Win a free AA Emergency Car Kit

Business leaders are responsible for ensuring their employees’ safety, and when winter comes around it’s important to remind them of the need to pay attention to safe driving issues. So this month we’re giving away an AA Emergency Winter Car Kit to help draw attention to the subject.

Read on for winter driving tips to share with your staff, and to find out how to win…

The kit fits easily into your car boot, and includes:

Foldable snow shovel
Emergency foil blanket
9 LED torch with batteries
High-visibility vest
Snow and ice grips
Booster cables
Ponchos

Safer Driving in Winter

We all prepare to some extent for the winter, whether it’s with a boiler service or getting a new winter coat. But have you made sure that you’re ready for the changeable driving conditions that winter brings?

Have you:

Checked that your lights are clean and the car battery is fully charged?
Made sure that your tyres are in good condition?
Cleaned your car windows – on the inside as well as the outside? It’ll really make a difference when that low angled sun is shining.
Made sure that your brakes are working well and your tyre pressure is correct?
Checked that your oil, anti-freeze and windscreen wash are all topped-up?

It’s also a really good idea to keep an emergency kit (like the AA one shown above) in your car during the winter months. If you’re assembling one yourself, consider including a warm coat or blanket, a snow shovel, wellies, a hazard warning triangle (many cars have these included), a torch and a first aid kit. Having a bottle of water and a couple of cereal bars is a good idea too. We’ve all heard stories from when people got snowed into their cars for hours on the motorway a few years back – having access to food and being able to keep warm makes all the difference in an uncomfortable situation like that.

Before setting off on a long journey always make sure that:

You have plenty of fuel
You’ve checked the weather reports for the area you’ll be travelling through
Your mobile phone is fully charged before you set off
You’ve let someone know where you’re going and when you expect to arrive.

Driving in Snow
As always, it’s vital to adapt your driving to the weather conditions. Slow down, remember your stopping distances, and avoid harsh braking and acceleration.

Getting stuck in snow can be a real pain. Trying to power out is not the best option; instead try to rock your car back and forth gently using a high gear. If this doesn’t work you might need someone to give you a push or get that snow shovel out and start digging.

Driving in Rain
I’m sure we’re all pretty experienced at driving in the rain, but always remember – it can require twice the normal braking distance to stop when the roads are wet, so be extra aware of how close you are to the car in front.

Driving in Fog
Here are a few tips to consider:

Switch on your headlights/fog lights if visibility is reduced;
If you can see a car behind you, they can see you and your rear fog lights could be dazzling them. Switch them off when visibility improves;
Rear lights of the car in front of you can sometimes provide a false sense of security, be careful not to get too close; and
Fog can be patchy so be careful not to speed up as soon as visibility improves slightly, you could find yourself in thick fog again very quickly.

For more information / advice on driving safely visit gov.uk or the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

To win a free AA Emergency Winter Kit worth £28.99 for one of your employees, send a message to Annette@amalgamate-safety.com before the 21st of December, telling us what efforts you’re making to help ensure staff safety this winter. A winner will be picked at random from all the entries.

Inactivity – We can’t keep sitting still

We have become an immobile nation. On average, workers in the UK spend 60% of their waking hours sitting down – and if they’re office-based, this can rise to as much as 75%.

Official government data shows that 29% of people in England are classed as physically inactive, meaning that they do less than 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity in total per week, even though that can be split into three 10 minute sets. And sadly the statistics are likely to be similar throughout the whole of the UK. We really are sitting still – and the effects of this inactivity are huge, and include an increased risk of diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease and premature death. It is the fourth largest cause of disease and disability, and directly contributes to one in six deaths in the UK – making it as dangerous as smoking.

The health repercussions of this are felt throughout the business world – sickness absence is estimated to cost UK businesses the vast sum of £27 billion per year – and inactivity is a large and combatable contributor to this.

It is vital that business leaders take a more pro-active role in providing opportunities and encouragement for their employees to be more active at work. Employee wellbeing needs to become a fundamental part of business, with a strong focus on increasing activity levels and improving health.

Progressive companies are introducing a wide range of incentives, including lunch-time yoga classes, increased use of standing workstations, balance boards, or exercise balls available to use instead of chairs, personalised activity plans, and even offering vouchers for shoes for people who walk to work. There are plenty of changes, small and large, that can be made – you just need to figure out what will work best for your team. These types of preventative actions lead to increased wellbeing and therefore reduced absence rates, and studies have also shown that they can also improve work productivity, efficiency, and satisfaction.

We can help you to take care of your team by providing:

DSE assessments to ensure that workstations allow staff to move dynamically
a range of sports and remedial assessments
on-site massages
advice on developing strategies to increase opportunities for movement

For help with creating or developing your company’s employee wellbeing programs and moving towards a healthier future, , click here to read further details of our Health and Wellbeing services and contact us on 0141 244 0181 or email info@amalgamate-safety.com.

New H&S Sentencing Guidelines – Are you ready?

New Sentencing Guidelines come into effect in February 2016. Is your business ready?

The Sentencing Council’s new guidelines aim to ensure a consistent approach to health and safety, corporate manslaughter, and food safety and hygiene cases, and will lead to a more severe response to these cases, and potentially higher fines.

Company directors who are found guilty of “consent, connivance or neglect” in relation to an offence could face unlimited fines, as well as up to 2 years in prison.

Serious health and safety breaches could result in fines exceeding £10million, and corporate manslaughter cases could exceed £20million.

Different fine ranges will apply depending on the size of the organisation. However it’s entirely possible that the fines could be of sufficient size to put a company out of business, which may be decided to be an acceptable consequence, if the offence is severe enough.

When a fine is being decided, the court will consider the overall seriousness of the offence based on the offender’s culpability and the risk of serious harm, even if no harm was actually caused. They will also take into account various factors including, amongst others, whether the business has:

any previous convictions
taken action to improve the situation
co-operated with the investigation
a history of relevant offences
committed the offence for the purpose of financial gain.

It is clear that the regulatory authorities expect companies to take positive action, and really prioritise health and safety issues. And although the guidelines will apply only to England and Wales, health and safety law is generally consistent across the UK, so it’s likely that Scotland will follow suit and implement tougher fines.

This news is a timely reminder to ensure that your business is compliant with all the relevant Health and Safety legislation, and that your H&S management systems are truly effective. Taking action now could protect the financial standing of your business.

To find out more about how we can help, call us on 0141 244 0181 or e-mail info@amalgamate-safety.com