From the start of next year, training providers and employers offering apprenticeships will no longer have to comply with any requirements that go ‘above and beyond’ health and safety legislation.

Businesses taking on more regulatory responsibilities and enforcement authorities giving greater recognition to companies’ efforts to comply with the law are two of the tenets of the Government’s vision for a better regulatory environment, Business minister Mark Prisk said yesterday.

The growth and popularity of free schools could expose teachers and pupils to health risks from poor asbestos management, unless the Government gets to grips with providing better training on the matter for governors and teachers.

The stress profession is the latest in the occupational health and safety field to embrace the current vogue for accreditation.

In a ground-breaking panel discussion in the AIF Working at Height forum, senior representatives of six leading UK safety organisations came together for the first time ever to discuss if the ‘Holy Grail’ of zero working-at-height accidents is achievable, and if so, how.

A social care organisation failed to take adequate action to protect service staff from a potentially aggressive client with learning disabilities, despite staff being exposed to a number of violent incidents involving the individual over a 21-month period.

Two men have been jailed for nine months each for taking health and safety tests on behalf of other construction workers.  

A fire-risk assessor and the manager of two hotels that he failed to adequately assess have both been jailed for eight months for breaching the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

A property maintenance company failed to provide a worker with adequate PPE or training prior to him receiving acid burns while unblocking a sink.

A safety trainer has been prosecuted by local authorities for failing to implement safe work-at-height practices during a demonstration.

Following on from the recent articles in SHP on getting invited to and succeeding at job interviews James Pomeroy suggests areas candidates could explore during the interview to better understand safety within the hiring organisation and thus stand out from the crowd.

Competence in construction is a key issue for all those with a stake in improving safety in this complex and hazardous industry, which, last year, saw a worrying rise in worker fatalities. Roderick Dymott presents his views on what needs to be done to achieve competence in the sector, based on significant research published by the HSE earlier this year.

During a time of economic downturn, employers can be tempted to reduce the level of training they provide as a way of cutting costs. But doing the opposite can also save money, says Sean Cusack, who explains how one transport and logistics provider increased its level of training delivery over the past two years to improve warehouse and driver standards.

Following on from their article in SHP in 2009, in which they looked at meeting worldwide demand for practical occupational-hygiene training, Roger Alesbury and Steve Bailey describe the lessons learnt during the development of a global training and accreditation scheme via a large-scale collaborative effort.

Being able to manage is pivotal to what health and safety practitioners do, but how many of us would consider we are effective at it? Following their review in last month’s issue of technical competencies, James Pomeroy and Tony Boyle now consider the profession’s management competencies and ask whether practitioners merit being called managers?

A university has been praised by the HSE for its commitment to safety by providing free training over and above the legal minimum requirement.

A ‘celebrity chef’ has teamed up with a well-known first-aid charity to raise awareness in the hospitality industry of the importance of life-saving knowledge.

A Yorkshire company which specialises in working safely when high above ground level has moved in to bigger and better premises to expand its business onwards and upwards.

Health and safety in Nigeria is set to progress a great deal further with the opening of a dedicated training suite by a UK-based provider in one of the country’s major cities.

The British Industrial Truck Association (BITA) has partnered with City of Bristol College to launch a dedicated forklift-truck apprenticeship scheme.



Oxford-based safety control-systems specialist Industrial Design has launched a series of online fire-safety training videos, which, it says, can help companies train their staff in basic fire safety, allowing them to comply with legal requirements and improve health and safety standards.

Castle Group has announced new dates for its 2012 training courses. The 2012 training calendar covers subjects such as Noise at Work, Human Vibration, Air Sampling for COSHH, Environmental Noise, and Diagnostic Vibration Analysis.

Drivers have been warned that winter weather is on its way and road safety experts have warned of the dangers of driving in snow and ice – dangers that can be avoided by affordable driver training.

The Fire Protection Association has produced a new DVD, which, it says, offers companies of all types and sizes everything they need to provide health and safety induction training for staff.

The first course for supervisors in Bahrain has just been successfully completed by 13 first-line supervisors from Gulf Petrochemical Industrial Complex (GPIC).