Over the years I have helped many businesses and organisations achieve and maintain the highest health and safety standards.

Safetyzone Health and Safety Services were appointed to work with the Quality Manager. Their existing management system was reviewed, a plan was prepared and discussed with key people who were identified as best placed to help implement the plan. A new health and safety policy was written, approved, and signed by the MD and briefed to staff. Risk assessments were done in all areas of risk incorporating applicable legislation and consulting the workforce at risk. Adequate safety measures were implemented, and safe systems of work were written where required.

This phase was followed by staff briefing and the provision of information, instruction and training. The final stage was to establish inspections and audits to check if the safety measures were working and feed the results back into the plan for action. Full documentation was provided. A site safety committee was established with quarterly meetings attended by key people representing all levels of staff in the company. Once this stage was reached the consultancy visits became one day per month to help maintain the system and compliance with legislation.

During the process, the company needed to gain approval to OHSAS 18001, the health and safety management standard, along with ISO 14001 the environmental management standard in order to meet customer demands for these approvals. The approvals were achieved and are still in place but now as ISO 45001 the integrated management system incorporating ISO 9001 the quality standard.

It was not economical for them to directly employ a safety advisor and engaged Safetyzone Health and Safety Services. A plan was prepared including policy writing, risk assessments, safe systems of work, inspections and audits. Staff were briefed on the results of the risk assessments with the necessary information, instruction and training provided. Monthly visits maintain the inspections and audits with findings fed back into the plan for action. Full documentation is provided.

Safetyzone Health and Safety Services worked with the full-time health and safety advisor to carry out site audits and estate inspections with reviews of existing documentation. Gaps in legal compliance were identified and a plan of action established to fill them. A well-established social care strategy and health and safety policy was in place. We worked with in-house managers, co-ordinators and site maintenance staff to carry out risk assessments, staff training, inspection, audit and review. All information was fed into the Safety Advisor’s plan for action. Telephone and email support was provided. The initial visits were followed up by twice-yearly audits with reports.

Safetyzone Health and Safety Services gathered data on welding processes and the configuration of welding equipment. This was used to calculate the EMF emissions and the extent of the electromagnetic fields relative to the welding operators. Full reports were provided for each welding process and the Company implemented the identified actions.

The same company had found a noise exposure problem on a flame cutting machine cutting blanks from sheet steel. The noise source was the blanks falling into a metal bin. The process supervisor wanted a conveyor that would take the blanks from the machine and carry them to the next process at a higher level than the cutting process and eliminate the noise. This was aimed at reducing manual handling operations. Standard roller conveyors were not robust enough to withstand the weight and the heat from the blanks.

Safetyzone Health and Safety Services sourced a specialist conveyor manufacturer to design and build a powered bespoke unit. The unit was built and installed successfully eliminating the noise problem and reducing the manual handling of blanks between processes.