Category: guidance

Heat stress (in the middle of Winter)

For those in the Northern Hemisphere at the moment, the risk of heat stress for workers is an extremely low priority but in Australia, even in the cooler parts and suburbia, the Summer temperatures are tipped to reach 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next few weeks.  Away from the urban and coastal centres, temperatures of 45 degrees C and higher will be common.

The Queensland Government’s OHS regulator has released new guidance on heat stress.  As it was only released on January 5 2010, it is the most current information.  The guidance seems aimed at rural workers and particularly those industries which may have a transitory labour force from cooler climates.

The guidance is useful in that it recommends some engineering solutions instead of just PPE.  For instance,

  • “creating some shade structure (tarp, umbrella) or at least find a tree for outdoor workers’ rest breaks
  • automating or mechanising tasks that require heavy or physical activity
  • reducing radiant heat emissions from hot surfaces and plant e.g. by insulation and shielding.”

Although it would have been good to see some mention of reassessing the need to work in heat at all as discussed elsewhere in SafetyAtWorkBlog.

The Queensland guidance recommends the following heat stress control measures:

  • “use sun protection – hat, sunscreen and light sun-protective clothing
  • drink at least one litre of cool water an hour when working in the sun
  • take breaks during the day in cool shaded areas to enable a rapid return of core temperature to normal
  • acclimatise to outdoor work gradually
  • have eaten during the day to ensure their energy and salt levels are maintained.
  • avoid alcohol, caffeine and drugs which can increase urine output and therefore fluid loss.”

Kevin Jones

Legal advice and safety management

The legal commentaries have begun to appear following the release of Australia’s draft Work Health & Safety Act.

One of the first, as usual, is a response from law firm Deacons.  It should be noted before discussing the suggestions that in the last couple of months Australia’s OHS legal brains are now concentrated in this law firm since Barry Sherriff jumped ship from Freehills.  A month or two earlier, Sherriff’s protegé, Penny Stephens, left the firm and took several others with her to Hall & Willcox.  This brain drain sets Freehills’ OHS practice back considerably.

However, Deacon’s first missive on the new OHS laws has been released, under the bylines of Sherriff & Tooma, and identifies several issues.  The first, and very useful to know, is the definition of due diligence that is now included in the Act under Duty of Officers:

“…due diligence means to take reasonable steps:

(a) to acquire and keep up to date knowledge of work health and safety matters; and

(b) to gain an understanding of the nature of the operations of the business or undertaking of the body and generally of the hazards and risks associated with those operations; and

(c) to ensure that the body has available for use, and uses, appropriate resources and processes to enable hazards associated with the operations of the business or undertaking of the body to be identified and risks associated with those hazards to be eliminated or minimised; and

(d) to ensure that the body has appropriate processes for receiving and considering information regarding incidents, hazards and risks and responding in a timely way to that information; and

(e) to ensure that the body has, and implements, processes for complying with any duty or obligation of the body under this Act; and

Examples

A body’s duties or obligations under this Act may include:

  • reporting notifiable incidents.
  • consulting with workers.
  • ensuring compliance with notices issued under this Act.
  • ensuring the provision of training and instruction to workers about work health and safety.
  • ensuring that health and safety representatives receive their entitlements to training.

(f) to verify the provision and use of the resources and processes referred to in paragraphs (c) to (e).”

This should provide more tips to OHS professional associations about where their services fit in general business obligations but it also sets the bar much higher for professionals in how they must upgrade their own OHS skills to match expectations.

Curiously, Deacons continues with issues of concern with the Act which have little to do with improving worker safety.  Several items hark back to the OHS Model Act Review Panel which has little more than historical interest nowadays but may reflect the fact that Barry Sherriff was a Review Panel member.  The list of concerns further supports SafetyAtWorkBlog’s position that safety law often masquerades as safety management.

Deacons concludes its update with the following “7 steps”:

“There are 7 steps that every business needs to undertake to prepare for this new era in Work Health and Safety regulation:

  • Legal risk analysis…
  • Review contracts …
  • Implement interface coordination plans …
  • Develop robust consultation processes …
  • Develop dispute resolution processes …
  • Develop processes on right of entry and regulatory rights and obligations …
  • Develop an OHS Corporate Governance Statement …”

Unsurprisingly, the first two involve assistance from one’s legal advisers.  SafetyAtWorkBlog recommends that businesses wait and see what support documentation is supplied by the OHS regulators first as it is they who determine the parameters for OHS compliance.

Businesses need to remember that the Work Health & Safety Act is not yet law and, in fact, has a long way to go before States introduces this law into their own jurisdictions.  Western Australia is still objecting to the law so it is unclear if this Act will ever be introduced without substantial change.  So until then keep following the local OHS legislation but keep both ears open in anticipation of the future.

New guidelines on aggression in health care

WorkSafe Western Australia and the other OHS regulators in Australia have produced a very good, and timely, guideline for the “Prevention and Management of Aggression in Health Services“.

The hazard has existed for many years and hospitals, in particular, are torn between the competing priorities of keeping their staff safe and maintaining  contact with their clients.   Glass screens and wire are effective barriers to violent attacks but it can be argued that such structures encourage aggression by implying that “violence happens here”.

The guidelines, or what the regulators call a “handbook for workplaces” (How does that fit in with the regulatory hierarchy for compliance?), provides good information on the integration of safe design into the health service premises.  But as with most of the safe design principles, as is their nature, they need to be applied from initial planning of a facility and so, therefore, are not as relevant to fitting-out existing facilities.  In health care, it often takes years or decades before upgrades are considered by the boards and safe design is still a new concept to most.

Another appealing element of the guide is that it does not only consider the high customer churn areas such as casualty or emergency.  It is good to see the important but neglected issue of cash handling mentioned even in a small way.

Another positive is the handbook includes a bibliography.  This is terrific for those who want to establish a detailed understanding of the issues and the current research.  For the OHS regulators, it allows them to share the burden of authority.  Just as in writing a blog, by referencing source material the reader understands the knowledge base for the opinions and the (blog) writer gains additional credibility by showing they have formed opinions and advice from the most current sources.

Having praised the bibliography, it is surprising that of all the Claire Mayhew publications and papers mentioned her CCH book “Guide to Managing OHS Risks in the Health Care Industry”, was omitted.

The regulators have often had difficulty determining whether checklists or assessment forms should be included in their guidances.  In Victoria one example of the conflict was in the Manual Handling Code of Practice that included a short and long assessment checklist.  Hardly anyone looked beyond the short version and many thought this undercut the effectiveness of the publication.

The fact is that safety management takes time and business want to spend as little time on safety as possible but still get the best results.  Checklists are an audience favourite and contribute to more popular and widely read guidelines, and broad distribution of the safety message is a major aim.

Interestingly amongst the checklist in this health services aggression publication a staff survey has been included.

(At least) WorkSafe WA has listened to the frustrations of readers who download a PDF version but then have to muck about with, or retype, the checklists.  This handbook is also available as an RTF file for use in word processing.

This is the first OHS publication that has come out from a government regulator with this combination of content, advice and forms.  It is easy to see how this will be attractive to the intended health services sector.

Kevin Jones

A good book of safety solutions case studies

Australia has many safety awards programs.  SafetyAtWorkBlog has reported on some of the practical solutions from the awards and lamented how the prominence of such solutions fades quickly as the mainstream media ignores them.  The blog has also shown examples of a hard copy solutions database that existed in Victoria and Australia for a couple of decades.

The European Union’s Agency for Safety and Health at Work has recently released, online, a publication in support of its risk assessment campaign that shows how safety solutions can be presented and shared without worrying about commercial-in-confidence or intellectual property.

Jukka Takala, Director of EU-OSHA, says in his foreword

“This report supports the campaign by providing information on successful interventions in the workplace illustrating how the hazards identified after a risk assessment can be eliminated or controlled. The report is aimed at those who are responsible for carrying out risk assessments in the workplace and for preparing decisions on risk elimination or control measures.”

The report, “Assessment, elimination and substantial reduction of occupational risks“, also provides a list of some very useful elements for preventative safety

“The employer shall implement the measures (necessary for the safety and health protection of workers) on the basis of the following general principles of prevention:

(a) avoiding risks;
(b) evaluating the risks which cannot be avoided;
(c) combating the risks at source;
(d) adapting the work to the individual;
(e) adapting to technical progress;
(f) replacing the dangerous by the non-dangerous or the less dangerous;
(g) developing a coherent overall prevention policy;
(h) giving collective protective measures priority over individual protective measures;
(i) giving appropriate instructions to the workers”

The report is very useful in its clarification of the role and potential benefits of risk assessment.  Each solution is described, in detail, as a case study and the report includes guarding issues, manual handling and psychosocial hazards.  On the latter category, here is the summary for psychosocial hazards in hospitals

“Stress in hospitals – assessment of psychosocial and physical risks

Hospital work is known to be physically and psychologically demanding.  A pilot project was therefore set up in a hospital with 470 employees to assess workplace risks and organisational aspects.  The workers were exposed to physical strain, risks from chemical and biological agents and psychosocial strain.  They were also stressed by administrative tasks. After the assessment the results were analysed, action plans drawn up and measures implemented.  Risk assessment became a standard part of quality and health management systems, including training.”

One of the particularly interesting element in this program was that one of the first sources of information it used was quality management documentation.  Quality management is one of the most under-utilised sources of OHS and strategic planning data.  As long as quality managers do not perceive quality as a business element above that of safety, environment or any other, as long as they accept that each element is of equal importance in integration of management system, the quality data will be indispensable.

The quality data is followed up by interviews with middle- or line managers, questionnaires and observations.

Of all of the control measures, this organisational change was very clever:

“The administrative tasks, in particular, were perceived by the nurses to be distracting and onerous.  They felt that paperwork kept them away from important care work.  Consequently, administrative tasks were delegated to the night shifts, where there was more time to devote to them as the amount of care work fell at night.”

This looked at workload in a peak/off-peak context that fits with the natural rhythm of the clients.  The paperwork night-shift may be a suitable solution for other workplaces and the night-shift workers may have increased productivity due to the lack of distractions.

EU-OSHA keeps producing reports and publications that call out for a broader readership than Europe and this is a great example.

Kevin Jones

PCBUs have begun appearing

A reader has drawn SafetyAtWorkBlog’s attention to one State regulator in Australia who has already begun to apply the broader definition for “employer” in their OHS guidance material.

In September 2009, the ACT Safety Commissioner published a Guidance on “Safe Structures, Systems and Workplaces“.  In that guidance, the Commissioner refers to

…”New general duties to ensure work safety by managing risk apply to a person:

…carrying on a business or undertaking;…”

This anticipates the definition put forward in Australia’s OHS model Act in relation to PCBUs (Peek-A-Boos).

The matter of a “business or undertaker” was also used in the ACT’s Work Safety Act 2008 (effective from 1 October 2009) throughout the document but with slight variation.  Of most interest here are the definitions of employer, worker and “business or undertaking”:

“employer, of a worker, includes a person who engages the worker to carry out work in the person’s business or undertaking.”

“worker means an individual who carries out work in relation to a business or undertaking, whether for reward or otherwise, under an arrangement with the person conducting the business or undertaking.”

“business or undertaking includes—

(a) a not-for-profit business; and

(b) an activity conducted by a local, state or territory government.”

The logic of such an inclusive term is understandable but needs greater clarity which is likely to some from regulations or supportive documents.

Having a Peek-A-Boo is one thing, let’s just hope that the jargon does not develop to start referring to “undertakers”.

Kevin Jones

Gov’t responds to insulation installer’s death

Recently SafetyAtWorkBlog reported of the death of a worker installing insulation in a domestic home.  A staple for the foil insulation apparently pierced an electrical cable and electrocuted the worker.

The Queensland Government has introduced mandatory provisions to avoid the hazard in the future.  In a media release on 1 November 2009, the Industrial Relation Minister, Cameron Dick,

“… issued a ministerial notice under the Electrical Safety Act 2002 to prohibit the use of metal fastenings for ceiling insulation.”

The ban is effective from 1 November 2009.

It may already be the case, elsewhere in the world, that non-conductive fasteners are used for installing metallic insulation.  If not, the rules introduced by the government should prove useful references.

“The ministerial notice means that installers will have to use nylon or plastic fasteners (which are already in use within the industry), glue or tape to fix foil insulation in ceilings.

As well as banning metal fasteners, the notice also:

  • forces insulation installers to comply with the Wiring Rules with respect to the placement of any type of insulation near recessed downlights
  • makes electrical safety risk assessment training mandatory for all installers
  • forces installers to document their on-site electrical safety risk assessments and keep a record f or five years.”

Such a mandatory rule is clearly a necessary short-term fix but it does little to address the concerns of the Master Electricians Association.  Training and enforcement are the long-term solutions but policymakers must also anticipate the applications of their policies more closely.  New policies should not be announced in an industry that does not have the resources to meet the policy’s aims.

Kevin Jones

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