With the New Year just round the corner, we take a look back at SHP’s most popular health and safety articles from the past twelve months.
As usual, in-court features have dominated the headlines. This year SHP readers were particularly interested in reading about prosecutions for Wilko, Warburtons, Iceland and Aldi.
Mental health has risen high up the agenda – we’ve published more mental health features than ever before and continue to see evermore interest from readers. Mental health has also sparked much debate – the article with the most reader comments in 2017 was this opinion piece by Dominic Cooper. Is perceived stress really more important than serious injuries & fatalities?
On social media SHP’s announcement of the 15 most influential people in health and safety had the most success. The article was shared 1,700 times on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Not far behind was the article announcing the finalists of SHP’s rising star awards.
The most viewed videos were the highlights from the Women in Health and Safety Christmas party just a view weeks ago and Andrew Sharman’s Safety Talk: Zero accidents and the fear of failure.
Here’s the full breakdown of the most popular health and safety articles for each month of 2017, followed by the top 10 SHP resources, measured by page views.
Thank you very much for reading SHP this year. If you’ve got ideas for health and safety articles in 2018 please get in touch on. Email us on: SHPEditor@ubm.com We’re always keen to hear from people who want to be featured on the site.
Maximum jail term for plant hire manager following fatal incident
The court heard how a safety net rigger and a self-employed operator were removing netting from the facade of an office block in Glasgow city centre when the basket they were in fell 28 metres to the ground. The incident left one man seriously injured and the other with fatal injuries.
Estate agents fined after househunter falls 30ft down a well
During an open house viewing the prospective buyer stepped onto a wooden board which was covering a well. The board gave way and she fell 30ft down the well, where she became submerged by water. The victim was left with head injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.
HSE 2017 – what inspectors are looking for and how to stay one step ahead
An overview of priority areas for Local Authority and HSE inspectors in 2017. The article, written by Angela Southall (co-founder of Southalls), explains what this meant for businesses and includes three top tips to stay one step ahead.
Million pound fine for council after member of public injured
Nottinghamshire County Council was fined £1M and ordered to pay costs of £10,269.85 after a member of the public was struck by a council tractor. An investigation showed the Council had failed to train workers to the required level of safety needed.
Three company directors jailed following warehouse death
The prosecution came after a man died at work when he fell through the roof of a warehouse. The Health and Safety Executive had warned the company about the dangers involved in the repair work.
71 people lost their lives in the horrific fire at the Grenfell Tower block of flats in north Kensington, west London. This article was SHP’s first in an ongoing series which followed the tragic events.
Aldi stores fined £1m for worker’s severe injuries
A delivery driver who had only worked for the firm for two weeks suffered severe injuries to his foot while operating an electric pallet truck at an Aldi store. Aldi pleaded guilty to two offences relating to health and safety breaches.
Is it right to silence big ben for workers’ hearing?
The decision to stop the the world’s most famous clock bell from chiming in order to protect restoration workers from its loud noise caused controversy. SHP investigated the case.
Iceland foods fined £2.5m following fatal accident
The incident happened when a contractor visited the store to replace filters within an air conditioning unit located on a plant platform above a suspending ceiling, which was located in the store’s warehouse.
Horrific injuries after scaffolding hits power lines
Scaffolding hit 33KV overhead power lines and the worker, a father of five, received an electric shock which led to the amputation of his left arm above the elbow, right arm below the elbow and both of his feet.
Gross negligence manslaughter: ‘precedent set’ as technician jailed in gate installation case
A technician who fitted an automated gate to the garden of a house was jailed for manslaughter after it fell onto the home owner and killed her. According to the Door and Hardware Federation, the case set a precedent in automated gate installation and maintenance.
Convenience store fined £250k for pothole
One Stop Ltd was prosecuted for health and safety failings after a customer tripped over a pothole on the forecourt and sustained serious injuries. The investigation revealed a catalogue of missed opportunities to repair the pothole prior to the accident.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
No chance of that as, that would require acceptance that they are ineffective or sub-optimal decision makers in the first place and that is not something any self-respecting self-harming deluded addict will admit !
Construction not the only arena in which expediency continues to manifest inefficiency, harm, injury and lost productivity as the supply chain and employees are too often left to their own devises with the expectation that employers will deal with the “if” rather than predicting the “when” of omission it is going to happen.
Digital Health & Literacy in the workplace for DSE user operators has been, sort of, ignored as temporary for ever whilst, in the meantime, employers carry-on accepting at least a 20% (1 day in 5) lost performance / productivity of, even if we take HSE conservative figures of 58% of DSE operators, presenteeism costing business alone in the UK £30bn and double that in social costs according to recent estimates.
It is now five years since the New 2012 EU MSD Directive failed to launch and 25 years since the opportunity to effectively address the debilitating and unmitigated or unjust symptoms of Computer Vision Syndrome or Screen Fatigue although, the remedial ergonomic interventions are well known or should be known were put in place in the 90’s well before the HSE reported in 2007 they were not being implemented and that the UK DSE Regulations had made “little or now impact on the level of operators suffering commonly reported stress related injuries”.
So, WHY are employers, trainers and educators, let alone the government, averse to doing anything to proactively intervene and alleviate the health risks to DSE user operators, even implementing palliative occupational health measures would have restored some of the lost productivity, reducing work-stress, performance anxiety and predictable level of WULD & MSD’s, apart from, longer latency NCD’s ?
Does anyone have any idea why or is it just a question of waiting for the migration to ISO 45001 and the question of “Work Exposure Limits” to stimulate a “what are we gonna do now?” to rear it’s head ?