Health and safety and security threats are often either the same or very closely related. This means that by practicing good health and safety, you will often improve your security - and vice versa. Here are some tips to help.
Conduct regular assessments of your premises
Risk assessments are m…
Asbestos may have been banned in the UK 20 years ago this month, but it continues to have a devastating effect on people’s lives today. In this post, we explore how and why asbestos is still a problem.
The UK Ban on Asbestos
Following a ban in the 1980s on blue (crocidolite) and brown (amosi…
Modern day employees can receive training for site safety, fire safety, construction safety, food safety, and a million subjects besides. In short, safety is a pretty tightly controlled and well understood discipline. Yet many of the industries where health & safety training and protocols are most p…
Plummeting temperatures and fallen leaves have been foreshadowing what this “year of the snowstorm” might look like, which is said to likely be the coldest since 2010/11. At this time of year, new potential hazards arise in the workplace – both outside and in – that need to be taken care of to preve…
As a naturally occurring material, the history of asbestos in tools and products stretches back thousands of years. Its seemingly miraculous properties of fire resistance and tensile strength led to its use in all kinds of products, with a particular boom in the early 20th century.
While many of …
VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, are a family of chemicals that readily evaporate and turn into gases and vapour. Put simply, this means they give off odorous fumes and increase the concentration of potentially harmful chemicals in the air.
And in the modern age, they can be…
In the western world, we take for granted access to soap and the hygiene education responsible for our daily handwashing regime. A combination of globalisation and healthcare are driving the interest in handwashing culture around the world, with encouragement to adopt the western approach, espec…
There aren’t many things worse than having a bed bug infestation in your home or business premises, but if you do, you need to know how to deal with it in the safest way possible. Not just for your own household, but for the local community. One of the main points to consider when it comes to safely…
Unfortunately, there are still a high percentage of employers who don't take safety seriously enough and are yet to embrace and appreciate the importance of occupational safety.
There is also by some a belief that providing a safe working environment is too expensive, they cannot justify the …
How much money does your company invest annually in office furniture? The chairs and desks your employees use could be costing you unnecessary money — especially if they do not promote proper posture or do not allow users to adjust the headrest, armrest and back. In a survey of 250 companies,…
Tattoos have always been popular, but in recent years’ tattoos have become less of a taboo and moved more into the mainstream, with 1 in 5 adults in the UK having a tattoo. A study has also shown that 1 in 10 people with a tattoo experienced problems with their tattoo, including swelling, itchin…
Exhausted employees are bad for business, and today's employers are paying the price. Although workplace fatigue can be just as dangerous as drinking on the job, it's surprisingly common in many modern industries. Today in the United Kingdom, for example, at least 3.5 million people work irregular h…
In the past year alone (2014/15), approximately 1.2 million people suffered from a work related disease. To put it into perspective, that’s approximately 1 in 60 people. This is also equivalent to 27.3 million working days being lost because of work-related illnesses and injuries, or over £14 billio…
For many modern professionals, there’s a frustrating irony to their hard work--their fast- paced, high energy jobs actually prevent them from being active and healthy. While one might think high stress would equal high energy output--and thus, a fine-tuned physique--the World Health Organization s…
Creating a sustainable workplace can be easily achieved in various ways, especially with modern technology such as software automation. The integration of technology into the work environment improves the safety and health of employees. One way to safeguard your employees, assets, and products is by…
Toxic to humans, carbon monoxide (or CO) is an extremely poisonous gas caused by unsafe gas appliances. Dubbed the ‘Silent Killer’ as it’s colourless, tasteless and odourless, it has claimed the lives of many thousands of people. In fact, it is estimated that around 50 people die each year from …
Safety Media will be unveiling exciting new LMS software at the upcoming Safety & Health Expo at London’s ExCel over the 16th-18th of June.
Built into the learning management system will be new Incident Reporting, Risk Assessment and Audit Reporting modules. These will enable businesses to asse…
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) were responsible for the loss of more than 8,000,000 UK working days in 2013/14. So how could employers improve to get some of these days back in the future?
These statistics were published by the Office for National Statistics, who also revealed that more…
It’s the single biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK, yet there are still far too many people who are blissfully unaware of the problem. I am of course referring to asbestos.
Although the potentially deadly substance was completely banned outright in Britain in 1999, there are still m…
When you hear the word bully, it is hard not to instantly think of school and the difficult times you or someone you know might have had when they were bullied by somebody there. What is sometimes forgotten is that bullying also takes place in adult life, and in the workplace, it can manifest easily…