Health & safety bulletin
Feedback On Good Safety Practice
23rd April 2009
As regular recipients of our bulletins, you will know that we have developed a strong strategy to raise awareness of health and safety issues, but are certainly not immune from accidents. Being "asleep at the wheel" is the most common cause of accidents, and we therefore need to keep our focus to make sure that complacency doesn't creep in.
Having analysed our statistics, there are some very encouraging signs in that both the number and the calibre of near misses continues to improve, as does the number of near misses where the danger is eliminated or mitigated at source.
Good safety practice has, in several cases, prevented Xmo Strata / Xmo Veritas employees and contractors from being hurt:
At Nuthall Road F/Stn a drill bit broke and the safety glasses being worn prevented the operator from any injury; without these he could easily have lost the sight in his eye.
At Rothwell F/Stn a car skidded on ice and hit our van that was defensively parked as a rigid protective barrier. This action almost certainly prevented the car careering into the work area and potentially hitting a mobile scaffold tower or an employee.
At Wells F/Stn a hacksaw slipped whilst being used. The operator was wearing gloves rated to cut resistance 3, as specified on his JSA. He sustained just a 5mm long cut to his knuckle; without the gloves, the cut would almost certainly have been significantly worse.
Please keep up the good work by continuing to refer to, and use, your JSA/Safety Method Statements. Be vigilant, look for and record site specific hazards and suitable control measures on your clearance certificates, and report and address any near misses you identify there and then.