Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Publications
Health and Safety Executive
HSE Books, 2007. (DVD)
Published 12.2007
This DVD contains re-enactments of three events where people have been injured by slow moving vehicles at work. Each of the three scenarios are played again, but this time showing how to do it safely.
Health and Safety Executive
HSE Books, 2007. (INDG244(rev2))
Published 12.2007
This leaflet provides advice and guidance for employers, and people in control of non-domestic premises of the requirements of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.
Imperial College London, Health and Safety Laboratory and Health and Safety Executive
(RR595)
Published 12.2007
The aim of this project was to produce an updated estimate of the current burden of occupational cancer specifically for Great Britain. The primary measure of the burden of cancer used was the attributable fraction (AF), ie the proportion of cases that would not have occurred in the absence of exposure. Data on the risk of the disease due to the exposures of interest, taking into account confounding factors and overlapping exposures, were combined with data on the proportion of the target population exposed over the period in which relevant exposure occurred. Estimation was carried out for carcinogenic agents or exposure circumstances that were classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as Group 1 or 2A carcinogens with strong or suggestive human evidence. Estimation was carried out for 2004 for mortality and 2003 for cancer incidence for cancer of the bladder, leukaemia, cancer of the lung, mesothelioma, nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC), and sinonasal cancer.
Decompression illness occurs either as symptoms arising soon after the hyperbaric exposure (decompression sickness (DCS)) or as chronic effects (such as dysbaric osteonecrosis) that do not become apparent until many years later. After hyperbaric exposures, the return to atmospheric pressure is routinely achieved by gradual decompression following set tables, and in modern times with breathing of oxygen (eg oxygenated Blackpool Table). The tables are designed to allow for the hyperbaric exposure pressure and duration, but the health risks are not fully controlled for all exposure conditions. Therefore there is a need to be able to monitor and improve the effectiveness of decompression procedures under routine operational conditions in compressed air tunnelling. Doppler monitoring of gas bubbles in the venous blood might fulfil that need.
(RR598)
Published 12.2007
This potential application of Doppler monitoring was evaluated by assessing the theoretical and practical issues in using Doppler, analysing the published studies that compare Doppler scores to related incidence of DCS, quantifying the relationship of Doppler scores to predicted level of gas in venous blood, and assessing the practical issues and experience of Doppler monitoring in tunnelling work. Doppler scores correlate with risk of DCS, and DCS has been associated with long term health effects. Data from diving trials and hypobaric exposure trials indicate that the correlation of Doppler grades with risk of DCS is not the same for all situations, which may be because the monitored bubbles are on their way out of the body and therefore are unlikely to be the ones causing the DCS.
Wolfsen College and Health and Safety Executive
(RR600)
Published 12.2007
This report describes the processes, output, and participant evaluations of a scenario-building project completed for the Horizon Scanning function of the Health and Safety Executive. The scenario process incorporated critical issues of change derived from 28 interviews of HSE policy-makers and outside experts. Participants in a two-day scenario-building workshop chose drivers of change from among these issues, and created a framework defining four different possible futures for health and safety in the UK in 2017. The scenario process also incorporated the emerging changes identified by horizon scanning as ‘hot topics’ for health and safety. Results from the workshop were written up in two formats:
As a test of their efficacy in generating policy discussion and ideas, the scenarios were deployed twice:
Serco Technical and Assurance Services
(RR599)
Published 12.2007
In the majority of offshore emergency scenarios on the UKCS the totally enclosed motor propelled survival craft (TEMPSC) are relied upon as the secondary means for mass evacuation, after helicopters. In many ways the lifeboats of the early part of the 20th century remain recognisable to those of the latter part though more recent changes to launch systems such as ‘on load’ release and the free-fall concept have become more widespread, driven by legislative changes that are usually in response to specific incidents. Though the new systems are commonplace across both maritime and offshore industries a number of accidents have been reported that can be attributed to shortcomings in their design, use or maintenance. Even though TEMPSC are subject to performance standards as laid down by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), these address issues primarily of concern to the carriage and use of lifeboats on ships rather than on installations.
This study investigated the current regulatory regime as applied to TEMPSC and its relevance, bearing in mind the specific circumstances encountered, to craft for use offshore.