Health and safety management services for Ypeople

We’re thrilled to announce that we are now working with Ypeople – a fantastic charity that operates across Scotland. They deliver a broad range of approaches to support children, young people and families, for example providing accommodation support, homelessness support, counselling and mentoring services. With around 170 employees, thousands of service users per year (including residential and community based services for a range of service users including people in housing need, asylum seekers and children and young people) and 19 locations, spread over a wide geographical area, Ypeople need to ensure that their health and safety management system is tailored to reflect their specific requirements and responsibilities.

Initially, our Director Allan MacDonald met with the team to understand their needs and requirements, and to do a full gap analysis exercise to provide a review of their current health & safety management system, benchmarked against applicable legislation, recognised best practice, and care inspectorate standards.

Allan said: “Working with the Facilities Manager, as well as HR Managers and workers, we carried out a thorough review which covered all policy and procedures associated with health and safety, including risk assessments, fire risk assessments, maintenance logs, training records, accident and inspection reports. Now we’re delighted to be moving on to providing a full retained consultancy service to Ypeople. Among other tasks, we’ll be developing their policies and procedures, undertaking fire safety work, and updating their health and safety management system.”

Working in partnership, we’re looking forward to helping Ypeople to take proactive steps towards developing a robust approach to health and safety management, while also growing and improving the safety culture throughout the whole organisation.

To learn more about the range of consultancy services that Amalgamate can provide, visit this page . If you’d like to get in touch, email us at info@amalgamate-safety.com or phone us on 0141 244 0181.

Working with Ayrshire Councils – Making First Aid Courses a Top Priority

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been chosen as the preferred supplier for the First Aid Training Framework for North Ayrshire, East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire Councils. Over the next 3 years, Amalgamate will be providing a full array of first aid courses to council employees, including First Aid at Work, Emergency First at Work, AED (Defibrillator) Training, and specialised courses for dealing with children and elderly people.

Since our creation in 2011, we’ve benefited significantly from the support provided by North Ayrshire Council and their Economic Development Team, specifically Steven Rieley as their Economic Development Officer. This has included support provided as a fledgling business through the growth programme, access to funding and advice for marketing and IT development, and leadership training for our senior team.

Our Director Allan MacDonald is delighted with the win, and commented “This framework is a great step for us, and we’re excited to be working in partnership with all of the Local Authorities to provide this training. The whole tender team including Kiri Goss, Annette Armstrong and Stuart Watt put in a massive amount of effort to win this fantastic opportunity and we are delighted that our hard work is definitely paying off!

It’s a great opportunity for us to share the knowledge and skills that our expert trainers have; and make sure that if council staff are faced with an accident or a sudden illness, they’ll feel confident that they know what to do to help, and can maybe save a life. What could be more rewarding than that?”

We provide first aid training to many different types of business, and can deliver at your premises or at our offices. If you’d like to learn more about our First Aid courses, read more here, or contact us at info@amalgamate-safety.com or on 0141 244 0181.

Health surveillance in action – working with Alba Tyre Management

We were delighted to support our client Alba Tyre Management in their continuing process of improving health and safety, by providing medical checks as part of their new occupational health surveillance provision. Our doctor took staff members through a series of health tests:

  • BMI check
  • Lung function testing
  • Vision testing
  • Hearing testing
  • Blood pressure check

Alongside this, employees were able to discuss any health problems that might affect (or be affected by) their work. At the end of the process, we issued reports, advising whether each individual was fit to work in their standard contractual roles, as well as for safety-critical roles. We also provided recommendations where we felt that workplace adjustments could be beneficial, and highlighted the need for follow-up checks.

Part of our process in delivering health surveillance services is ensuring that we help businesses keep on top of scheduling follow up and annual checks. We’ll get in touch with our clients to remind them when further tests are due, to make sure that employee health is monitored effectively. This way they reap the optimal benefits of the process, helping to prevent avoidable health issues from developing.

We’ve worked with companies in many different sectors and industries. To read more about what we do, check out our Case Studies page. To learn more about health surveillance and our other occupational health services, contact us on 0141 244 0181, or email info@amalgamate-safety.com

Occupational Health Assessments

We can provide Occupational Health Assessments at your workplace, for preventative, health surveillance or treatment plan purposes.

Loss of income from reduced performance, or absence of key members of staff is an expensive burden for business. In 2016, 137 million working days were lost to sickness absence, costing UK businesses in the region of £16 billion per year.

Occupational Health Assessments can help to tackle this problem – reducing sickness or injury absence, while also improving staff productivity and morale.

We offer a variety of services, including:

Health surveillance – our doctors can assess staff for Fit to Work certification, to confirm if they are able to perform standard and/or safety-critical roles. They can also monitor health issues for preventative care, including vision and hearing tests, lung function testing, blood pressure and BMI monitoring.

Consultations – where an employee has an ongoing health problem, assisting in the development of a plan to help them continue to work or return to work if possible, and to establish any adjustments that could be made to help them to work, while protecting their health.

If you’d like to know more about any of our Occupational Health services, call us on 0141 244 0181 or email info@amalgamate-safety.com

Women and Safety – how gender impacts health and safety

Women make up 42% of the workforce in the EU, however, historically there has been little focus on how gender and sex differences affect health and safety. Research studies have focused primarily on men, while excluding or ignoring women. But understanding the impact of gender and sex differences on people’s occupational health and safety can help to reduce inequality in the workplace.

In generalised terms, it is still true to say that there are gender differences in how people are concentrated in occupations and industries, and therefore there are often differences in the kinds of hazards that they face. Additionally, their working conditions and the attitudes and behaviour of their employers can affect the hazards they deal with, and how risks need to be assessed and controlled. For example, there are differences in working patterns, as women are more likely to work part-time than men; and an EU-wide survey found that “women were more likely than men to undertake repetitive tasks or repetitive work and were more likely to have difficulty taking breaks” which has significant effects when it comes to the risk of musculoskeletal injury.

In relation to health and safety management (as in other management areas), there is an ongoing problem of under-representation of women in safety committees and other decision making groups. Therefore issues around female-specific health and safety can be marginalised or overlooked. While some might argue that a gender-neutral approach is best, this in fact tends not to occur, and management adopts an automatically male-centric approach, which results in risks to female workers being underestimated or even ignored altogether.

So, what to do to improve things? Firstly, ensure that there is appropriate representation in groups that deal with implementing health and safety in your organisation. Then do some research on how sex and gender differences affect your industry. There are plenty of helpful resources out there on women and safety that can assist you in developing a more rounded approach to health and safety. Here are some starting points:

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has information on gender issues and safety and health at work , including gender issues in risk assessments

The TUC provides a range of guidance around gender and occupational health.

The Health and Safety Executive offers information related to new and expectant mothers, and how they can be supported.

Beginner’s Guide to Workplace Incident and Accident Investigation

Why is incident and accident investigation important?

In 2017/18, 555,000 people were injured in a workplace accident, and 144 people were killed.

In workplaces, unfortunately it’s often the same incidents that happen again and again. When an incident or near miss occurs, it is important that lessons are learnt to prevent this from happening. As well as helping you to meet legal reporting requirements, incident and accident investigation can help you understand what went wrong. They can help you to understand how and why something happened, so that processes can be improved and similar incidents avoided.

How do you carry out an effective incident or accident investigation?

A proper incident or accident investigation requires a structured approach. Information needs to be gathered as soon as possible after an incident or accident has taken place, both from the scene where the incident or accident took place and from witnesses. This information then needs to be analysed so that you can understand not only the immediate cause of the incident but what the underlying problem was that led it to happen.

Risks are present in every workplace, and the purpose of your risk management systems is to do everything you can to reduce risk to a level where it is unlikely that an accident or incident takes place. If something has happened, then, it shows that your risk management systems aren’t sufficient and they need to be reevaluated.

The information you gather in your incident or accident investigation then needs to be used to draw up an action plan of how you are going to prevent this accident or incident from happening again.

How can we help you with incident and accident investigation?

We can give you guidance on developing systems to help you track what kind of near misses are happening within your business, so that you can see what patterns emerge. Often, in the lead up to a serious accident, there are many smaller scale incidents. We see these as an excellent opportunity to understand what problems you have – so that you can make changes before someone is hurt, or worse.

But these incidents only work as indicators if someone knows about them, and is paying attention. That’s why incident reporting is a key element in safety management. We can show you how best to implement it in your organisation, to improve standards and keep your people safe.

If, despite your best efforts, an accident occurs – we can help with that too. Our services include:

  • Enforcement authority engagement
  • Experienced accident investigators
  • Improvement & prohibition notice guidance.

Get in touch

To learn more about our health and safety consultancy services to businesses in the UK and beyond, read more here, or get in touch with us at 0141 244 0181 or email info@amalgamate-safety.com.

 

New Penalties for Using a Mobile Phone while Driving – What does it mean for business?

On 1st March 2017, changes were made to penalties regarding the use of mobile phones while driving. Since 2003 it has been illegal to use a handheld device while driving, but now the penalties have doubled. If you’re caught using a mobile phone while driving, whether that’s to call, text, look up a new route, or change what music you’re listening to – it’s a £200 fine and 6 points on your license. And if you’re within 2 years of gaining your license, it will be revoked.

The key facts are: if you use a mobile phone while driving, you are 4 times more likely to be in an accident, and a quarter of crashes are caused by someone who drives for work.

What does this all mean for businesses who have employees who drive for work? Well, your Health and Safety Policy should already include details about the handheld ban, but this is a great opportunity to reiterate the point with staff.

There are also legal implications for businesses if their employees are involved in a traffic accident. Employers may be open to prosecution:

  • If they cause or permit an employee to drive while using a phone or to not have proper control of the vehicle.
  • If they require an employee to make or receive calls whilst driving.
  • If an employee drives dangerously because they’re using a phone installed by their employer.

For the sake of your employees, and everyone else on the road, it’s vital that you emphasise that your organisation forbids them from using handheld devices while they drive. Lives are truly at stake.

For more information on including driver safety in your policies, contact us on 0141 244 0181 or email info@amalgamate-safety.com

Safety Management Systems – Helping you stay on top of Health & Safety

When we start working with a new client, we sometimes find that they’ve made a well-meaning attempt at getting to grips with a Safety Management System. They might have a Health and Safety Policy, some risk assessments, and maybe a procedural document or two. But often, these are written in a way that make them overly complicated, or extremely lengthy.

There are often parts missing – sometimes important considerations like fire safety management, sometimes smaller things like details on housekeeping standards – but the point is, all these things add up. And if your health and safety documentation is hugely long, or not clearly written and presented, chances are your employees aren’t actually paying attention to it. That’s bad news – because a policy that no-one reads, is a policy that’s destined to fail.

Any good health and safety consultancy can make a safety management system, but here at Amalgamate, we want to make sure that it’s one that actually works for your organisation and people in the real world.

We value clarity, conciseness and consistency. We can develop policies and procedures that mesh together, documents that make plain sense, and a Safety Management System that is understandable by all. We’ll make sure that all the details are covered, that you know what your responsibilities are, and that you have everything you need to protect your employees and your property, as well as staying in line with all the necessary legislation.

Contact us today to learn about our consultancy services, and see how we can help to get you moving in the right direction with health and safety. Call 0141 244 0181, or email info@amalgamate-safety.com

How a Fire Risk Assessment helps to protect your business

Why do you need a fire risk assessment? A fire in the workplace is the kind of risk that many businesses put off thinking about. It is a fairly rare occurrence, but if one happens, the effects can be extremely grave. Consequences could include death or severe injury, as well as loss of property, data, plant or machinery, severely impacting your organisation. The Civil Contingencies Service states that 80% of businesses that suffer a major disaster, such as fire, go out of business within 3 years.

So reducing the risk of fire to the lowest possible level is critical, and a Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) will help you understand what you need to do. The Assessment will establish where danger lurks at your property, and what specific risks are relevant to the premises. We will provide you with a clearly laid out report which will give you all the guidance you need to make the changes that will protect your organisation, as well as keeping you in line with all your legal obligations.

We’ve provided FRAs to a wide range of clients, including for A-listed buildings of national significance, commercial buildings, hotels, offices, leisure facilities, breweries and hospitality venues. So whatever your line of business, we’re ready to help.

Our assessors are true experts – they’re all former fire officers, with experience and qualifications in a range of specialist subjects, including fire regulations, human behaviour in fire situations, and fire alarm systems. They have a thorough understanding of the contributory factors that allow fires to occur, and the means of preventing them

Make 2019 the year that you take the next steps to protect your company’s people and assets – get in touch with us to learn more. Call 0141 244 0181 or email info@amalgamate-safety.com

fire risk assessment