The World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2022

read time: 3 mins
28.04.22

Today (28 April 2022) is the International Labour Organisation (“ILO”) World Day for Safety and Health at Work; the first in two years where the UK is not in lockdown.

The pandemic changed the landscape of how we work, catapulting health and safety to the forefront of employers’ minds and as organisations welcome workers back into their offices, promoting a safe and healthy environment needs to remain a priority.

The day looks to raise awareness around promoting the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases globally, with ILO estimating that approximately 2.3 million people worldwide die at work from an occupational injury or disease. There are also estimated to be around 340 million occupational accidents and 160 million victims of work-related illnesses worldwide, a number which has cost UK employers £26.9 million in fines resulting from prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive (“HSE”) in 2020/21.

Ashfords Business Risk and Regulation Team advise organisations across a full range of industry sectors on regulatory compliance and defence representation, with a specialist focus on environmental and health and safety risks. To help raise awareness on this day, the Business Risk and Regulation Team have identified 4 emerging health and safety risk trends. Follow the links below to find out more:

ISO 45003: managing mental health in the work place.

ISO 45003 is the first global standard to provide practical guidance for managing mental health in the workplace. Its introduction has been both timely and welcomed with the pandemic uniting organisations in experiencing unknown psychological and emotional stresses in the workplace. In this article, we explore the importance organisations need to place on managing psychosocial risks, not just from a legal perspective but also having regard to the economic and social benefits.

Click here to read more.

Air Quality in the workplace and managing associated health risks

Thousands of UK citizens experience ill-health or even death each year due to poor indoor air quality in the workplace. With an increasingly wider return to the workplace following Covid-19, indoor air quality should be high on an employer’s agenda. In this article, we explore the health and safety law relating to air quality, common work place pollutants and the measures that organisations can take to achieve good indoor air quality in the workplace.

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Alone but safe: how can employers protect their lone workers?

With a lack of direct supervision and on-hand assistance if something goes wrong, lone workers are inevitably exposed to greater risks of harm. How can employers reduce the risks posed to lone workers to ensure their compliance with Health and Safety Law and more importantly, keep their lone workers safe and healthy and how can new technologies be effectively deployed to assist in managing this risk?

Click here to read more.

The Port Marine Safety Code and the Impact of Health & Safety Legislation: do you need a Harbour Empowerment Order?

A failure to comply with the Port Marine Safety Code can lead to serious consequences if proceedings were brought under Health and Safety legislation. Non-statutory marine facilities can mitigate this risk by applying to become statutory via a Harbour Empowerment Order. Our regulatory team advises a number of large port operators and in this article we look at the importance of harbour empowerment orders, in light of the recent MAIB report into the Key Bora grounding.

Click here to read more.

If you would like more information in relation to this or any regulatory risk topic, please contact our Business Risk and Regulation team for specialist legal advice.

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