The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has announced that they will carry out further inspections of NHS Trusts and Boards across Wales, Scotland and England from July to December 2021.
This follows a series of inspections which took place towards the end of last year, focussing on measures to manage health and safety risks from COVID-19. The report on the findings of these inspections identified a lack of consultation with union health and safety representatives and issues with social distancing in rest rooms and other non-clinical areas.
The forthcoming inspections of 20 organisations will focus on measures employers have in place to prevent and manage work related violence and aggression, musculoskeletal disorders and COVID-19. Work related musculoskeletal disorders are a priority area in health and appeared in the HSE’s public sector plan. Inspection activity on violence and aggression was originally planned just for prisons but pressure from the health unions led to this being part of the NHS inspections.
HSE inspectors should be actively seeking out union health and safety representatives when they visit organisations and as a UNISON health and safety representative you have a right to meet with them in private and make representations about any health and safety concerns. You can use your own health and safety inspection reports, minutes of safety committee meetings or any other evidence that issues have not been resolved when speaking to inspectors. Following the inspection, they should also inform you about any measures they have or propose to take including:
- matters which an inspector considers to be of serious concern
- details of any enforcement action taken by the inspector; and
- an intention to prosecute the business (but not before the duty holder is informed)
UNISON is looking to recruit more health and safety representatives in all sectors including health – if you know of a member who is interested in becoming active in protecting members’ health and safety, please tell them about our Be ON The Safe Side campaign and how to become a UNISON Health and Safety representative
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