On the whole, print has a reasonably good safety record. According to the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) annual statistics, the printing sector has a lower accident rate than associated industries such as paper and board production.
Yet there is certainly no room for complacency. Sloppiness has potentially terrible ramifications. Several years ago, the HSE issued specific safety requirements for using hand-fed platen (die-cutting) machines following five fatal accidents around the world since 2007.
More recently, a less serious but still nasty incident saw a printer in Leeds fined £18,000 plus costs in 2015 after a production worker had the end of his thumb severed in a gluing machine. The HSE found the front of the unit where the worker was injured had no guarding and that employees had not been provided with adequate instructions.
“The main risks within the industry are slips and trips, guarding of machinery, manual handling and dermatitis,” says BPIF Head of Health, Safety & Environ-mental Lynda Taylor. “The BPIF team undertake health checks to our members on a daily basis and these seem to be the main areas where companies don’t have any control or systems in place. The majority of firms [where issues are highlighted] have insufficient guarding on their machines and poor risk assessments which are leaving companies open for improvement/ prohibition notices from the HSE.”
There is, of course, a cost attached to falling short of HSE standards. The ‘Fee For Intervention’ (FFI) for a material breach of H&S laws was introduced in late 2012 and currently stands at £129 per hour. The amount of money HSE may seek to recover through FFI has caught a number of businesses by surprise and appears to be escalating.
The total is based on the amount of time it takes HSE to identify and conclude its regulatory action in relation to the material breach. This includes associated office work rather than merely time spent on site by inspectors addressing the issue. The time spent is multiplied by the hourly rate, including part hours.
According to a report in Health & Safety at Work magazine in September 2015, the average cost of an FFI invoice issued by HSE is £715 – a 40% rise on when the scheme was first brought in three years earlier.
Unsurprisingly, manufacturing has a higher total exposure to FFI costs than any other sector.
The recipe for avoiding HSE penalties – or indeed, far worse – should come from the top, leadership teams need to set the right tone and demonstrate genuine commitment to H&S.
“Having strong and effective leadership in the organisation is important,” says Jo Carter, technical publications officer at the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), the chartered body for health and safety professionals. “Committing to protect employees from incidents and by ensuring that they are healthy and safe in the workplace is not only a legal requirement but essential to a successful business. This can be done by developing and monitoring health and safety management systems, setting good examples by following procedures and motivating employees to participate to ensure effective health and safety in the workplace is carried out.”
An effective way of managing risks in the workplace and producing a high-performing workforce is through engagement. Carter says that by giving a workforce the right skills and getting them more involved shows that their health, safety and wellbeing is being taken seriously. This, she asserts, is more likely to create a culture where employees will raise concerns and offer solutions but also to generate greater awareness of workplace risks and how to control them more efficiently.
IOSH’s guide Promoting a Positive Culture recommends that “employers should find out what their managers and employees actually believe about health and safety and make clear what’s expected of them in terms of health and safety values, beliefs, attitudes and practices and consider the most appropriate interventions to address any differences between expectations and reality in the organisation’s health and safety culture.”
Three-way focus
At Wyndeham Group, the circa £130m magazine and commercial print group, which employs more than 1,000 staff, Miranda Hayward has the unusual title of group HR/HSEQ/IT director. As part of a lean structure designed to aid effective reporting and decision making, Hayward covers these three important overlapping areas and provides a direct link between managers and the board so any problems highlighted can be quickly resolved.
“The significant risks to health and safety of individuals at work, come from contact with moving machinery like forklift trucks and conveyors, manual handling and slips trips and falls,” says Hayward.
“Ensuring the appropriate processes are in place for individuals to follow with regard to stopping machines as needed to clear jams and not take risks, ensuring all guards are in place and a guard check process is in place daily and ensuring good housekeeping standards are maintained, and all receive induction training which includes manual handling and regular updates, are key to managing these risks.”
Mindfulness
Companies need to be mindful of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER). Time and again, BPIF’s Taylor points out, printers fall into the trap of relying on the CE marking in the belief it complies with the regulations.
Another issue is the age of machines. Taylor says she constantly hears that machines ‘were installed and came like that’. This is not an acceptable excuse. When the PUWER regulations were adopted in 1998, companies had 10 years to retrospectively fit guards to all machines. The regulations are explicit in stating that if there is access to moving parts, then the machine has to be guarded.
However, as the print industry evolves to become more automated, with greater emphasis on use of technology such as digital printing, the focus for H&S risks is turning towards manual handling issues. Work-related lifting or posture may trigger musculoskeletal disorders (MSD).
“There is always a need for staff to lift and move printed product within the factory, until this process could become cost-effective to automate – which is a long way off,” says Delga Press Group operations director Ian Conetta. “We find that as litho printing presses are on the decline, the types of injuries which were more common 20 years ago such as trapped hands in rollers or dropping cylinders on feet are becoming very rare. It is more likely that someone may get carpal tunnel syndrome now from a repetitive task such as working in a pre-press studio, hunched over a desk.”
What is the best way, then, to go about setting up effective H&S policies? Ideally the statement should be written by people within your organisation as they have the clearest idea of how you operate. Informed external advice can be extremely valuable, however, although it is always important to ensure the policy is appropriate for the needs of your business and mindful of business objectives and targets.
“Large organisations are expected to retain at least one member of staff qualified to NEBOSH (The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health) General Certificate level, if not to the higher Diploma level – as we do,” says CFH Docmail operations director/deputy managing director Adam Harwood. “This provides essential consultative resource in awareness, advice and review to ensure best practice. We supplement this by training key staff in IOSH managing safely. The policy will benefit from staff input due to their day-to-day experience and this will give a better route to gain commitment in delivering the aims of the policy.”
CFH Docmail is a large organisation with multiple sites. To address this, it has in place an overarching corporate policy that covers general issues. It is supported by more detailed policies relating to individual sites or activities. This, says Harwood, allows the definition of responsibilities and gives control to individual site management.
Communicating a policy is of course essential and there is a range of options here. If it is short enough, you may decide to give a written copy to each employee.
For larger organisations or if your policy is lengthy, channels such as notice boards, intranets and group briefings may be used. It is important that all communication uses clear and concise language to ensure maximum effectiveness and understanding. But it shouldn’t stop there. “Monitoring that the policy is still effective is vital,” says Harwood. “There are many ways that this can be done, including carrying out spot checks or safety inspections using prepared checklists. More formally, effective monitoring can be achieved through audits and by reviewing management reports and accident investigations.”
At CFH Docmail, the review process is consolidated and managed by the implementation of a Health and Safety Committee with full representation from all levels of the business. There is also an annual review “that will inform necessary changes to the policy and other relevant instruments”.
There is more to H&S than regulatory must-haves. Experts believe that those businesses prepared to go the extra mile may reap commercial rewards. IOSH’s Carter says that ensuring employees are healthy and safe in the workplace is not only a legal requirement but essential to a successful business, while the BPIF’s Taylor points to “improvements in morale, a happier workforce and a reduction in accidents and time off” at companies that give it serious attention, adding that by providing guidance on how to implement H&S effectively and the best way to involve the workforce improves quality and production. In other words, a safer business is a better business – and not just in terms of its employees’ wellbeing.
