| 267. |
A number of organisations (such as Prospect
and TUC) are critical of a lack of proactive
enforcement action by HSE with regard to
occupational health issues. The TUC, for
example, points out that in 2002/03, the
regulations most frequently used for securing
a conviction were construction, work equipment
and gas safety regulations (leading to over
85 convictions). In contrast, only one person
was successfully prosecuted under the noise
regulations and one under the manual handling
regulations, despite ‘the epidemic
of back, pain, stress, hearing loss and
RSI that we have seen in recent years.’
|
| 268. |
Figures provided to the Committee by HSE
show that in 2003/04, there were 14 enforcement
notices under the Health and Safety (Display
Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992, 243
under the Manual Handling Operations Regulations
1992 and 202 under the Noise at Work Regulations
1989. This compares to some 13,263 enforcement
notices issued by HSE in 2002/03. Research
also suggests that prosecution may be under-used
for health issues. |
| 269. |
It should also be noted that health problems
such as musculo-skeletal disorders and stress
are connected to the way in which work is
organised. The ‘principles of prevention’
set out in existing legislation (which refer
to adapting work to the worker and avoiding
repetitive and monotonous work) should,
if applied effectively, help to reduce such
problems. Yet, just 103 relevant enforcement
notices were issued in 2002/03 . |
| 270. |
Evidence to the Committee suggested a low
level of enforcement action in relation
to stress, one of HSE’s priority programme
areas and one which evidence to the inquiry
suggests employers find difficult to tackle.
A small survey of social services departments
conducted by the Employers’ Organisation
for Local Government (EO) found that while
10 out of 14 respondents were taking action
to reduce stress, in only 2 cases was the
action considered to be effective. A survey
of lab workers by Amicus found that stress-related
illnesses were the most frequent cause of
serious work-related ill health among lab
workers . Over two-thirds (69%) of respondents
thought their employer took the issue seriously
but only 4.6% thought their employer was
taking adequate steps to deal with the issue.
Despite this, there was only one case of
a department or institute that had been
reprimanded by the HSE for stress problems
in the last three years. (The NHS Confederation
and the EO did, however, report that HSE
was helping to encourage employer action
on stress, with the EO pointing to a ‘rolling
programme of auditing of local authorities
for their stress management techniques,
practices and procedures.’ ) |
| 271. |
Asked
about the low levels of enforcement action
in this area, the Minister emphasised
the importance of ensuring employers had
the advice and guidance they needed:
‘Before
we put emphasis on enforcement for health,
we need to ensure that there is good
information and advice out there being
given to employers before we then require
them to implement it. The HSE is doing
this, it is running a number of pilots
which will then be evaluated.’
|
| 272. |
Coverage of occupational health support
for employers is low (see chapter 15) and
developing this is a crucial part of HSE’s
strategy in the longer-term. However, in
the meantime, there must be cases in which
enforcement action is appropriate. The Sheffield
Occupational Health Advisory Service (SOHAS),
for example, told the Committee that there
were firms in Sheffield that have caused
substantial health problems for years. Furthermore,
it seems that enforcement can be effective
in prompting action in this area. Mr Julian
Topping of the Department of Health told
us that the improvement notice issued on
West Dorset General Hospitals NHS Trust
in relation to stress had helped ensure
that HSE guidance on stress had been ‘picked
up very well by people across the NHS’
The extent of occupational health problems,
such as musculoskeletal disorders and stress,
suggests that enforcement action on these
issues could be increased substantially,
with beneficial results. |
| 273.
|
The
question is then whether HSE is able to
identify cases where action needs to be
taken, whether it is sufficiently resourced
to do this and whether its inspectors are
equipped for the job. SOHAS argued that
a major problem is that enforcement agencies
lack the means to achieve their targets.
In order to play a major role, they must
be able to identify where cases are occurring,
have the intervention methods that they
need to bring about change in the workplace
and the monitoring systems to make sure
that change has occurred. |
| 274. |
In terms of identifying cases of occupational
ill-health that need investigating, SOHAS
pointed out that employment insecurity and
confidentiality issues limit the data collected
at workplace level that enforcement agencies
could use. SOHAS perceived a reluctance
on the part of employees to reveal health
problems to managers because of the risk
to their jobs and considered that greater
employment protection than that provided
by existing employment and disability legislation
was needed. It suggested that non-legal
solutions might include the development
of secure communication systems between
workers and enforcement agencies, or the
development of alternative sources of data
collection not currently available. |
| 275. |
In terms of identifying the kinds of premises
that would benefit from a proactive inspection,
CoSLA pointed to a need to review the criteria
used by local authorities to enable this
to be done. It argued that in doing this,
increased emphasis needed to be given to
health issues which had traditionally ‘not
featured too highly’ in a local authority
context and account should be taken of initiatives
currently being undertaken by HSE on stress
in the public sector and in call centres.
|
| 276. |
SOHAS argues that inspection systems fall
down when it comes to looking for occupational
health problems and their causes. Missing
guards and helmets are obvious, occupational
stressors, or an assembly line speed that
is too fast or a bench that is the wrong
height for some members of staff, are not.
At the very least much more probing and
time-consuming inspection techniques would
be required. SOHAS also points to the difficulty
of defining satisfactory compliance outcomes
for inspection visits and argues that this
is likely to be one reason for the small
number of prosecutions reported each year
for failure to comply with health related
regulations. |
| 277. |
The
Committee recommends that inspectors should
have the resources that they need to be
able to identify health issues, recommend
remedial action to be taken by employers
and define satisfactory outcome measures.
Resources are also required to enable proactive
research work to be done on combating newly
emerging risks, like passive smoking. The
risk assessment criteria should be reviewed
to ensure they are able to identify workplaces
where occupational health risks are high.
The results of this review should be published
by 1 October 2005. |
