Health & Safety Assessment

Mandy Collings
Member - 1 post

You could try Peninsula www.peninsula-uk.com they are one of the big boys in the area, I use them for HR assistance and they are quite good, some people say they stick to the rules almost too much for HR Law but I have found them very helpful, they produce all my HR docs. They also have a Health and Safety side and will come out and do the full assessments and tell you exactly what you need to do.

RUSSELL HILL
Member - 36 posts

Nicho;a
If you need any help with peole who drive as part of their work let me know. If you have staff driving on business they are likely to be your greatest risk.

Russell

David Sharp - Workplace Law Network
Online advisor - 134 posts

Nichola - This is exactly the kind of work we do at Workplace Law for clients across the country. I will put one of my colleagues in touch with you.

Mandy, your experience of Peninsula is interesting and slightly unusual from the feedback we get - the majority of members we've spoken are unhappy with the service they receive from the 'big boys', but Peninsula does considerably worse than Croner in the satisfaction stakes.

My only direct experience of Peninsula's health and safety service was attending a presentation where one of their sales people said: "If you employed someone to do your risk assessments, and they weren't competent, all your risk assessments are automatically invalid." I was not impressed ...

richard morgan
Member - 2 posts

David Sharp has echoed some of my reservations about "the big boys" from the aspect of a trade union. I am with the GMB and have experienced some of Peninsular's HR proffessionals first hand. The advice given by them tended to be generic and that which dealt with personel matters had a definate slant towards the absolute minimum an organisation had to do to comply with the letter of the law. I assume the same minimal standards are extended in the area of Health and Safety and if so it is a very poor way of developing any companies ethic. If Nichola realy wants an effective and safe workplace a trade union trained and authorised health and safety committee has delivered a consistant 50% fall in accidents and incidents. (ref HSE and TUC)

Mick Harlow
Member - 2 posts

Nicola,

I work for the Fire Service in Derby, i would contact your local area fire safety office and get advice from them regarding fire safety. Depending on the area office they may even come out and advise you where to start and MAY recommend reputable companies. Depends on the enforcing officer really, however i am sure they will give some good advice as a starting point.

If you need further advice give me a call.

Anthony Buck
Member - 15 posts

Free government guidance to allow you to manage your fire safety & carry out your fire risk assessments in house are available at http://www.communities.gov.uk/fire/firesafety/firesafetylaw/

The Fire specific forum at
is also of use.

We carry out a lot of fire safety assessment & advice for companies and try to be realistic & not OTT in what we do and if after using the above still think you need the advice of external competent persons, please get in touch.

Anthony Buck BSc CMIOSH MIFPO
Fire Safety Consultant
www.smms.co.uk

Anthony Buck
Member - 15 posts

Missing link to fire forum (its non commercial, non profit):

http://www.fire.org.uk/punbb/upload/index.php

Nigel DuPree
Member - 170 posts

Hi Nicola, does your company own the building ?

If not, depending on contents of lease, landlord & tenant conditions, the owner may be responsible for maintaining the fabric of the building and you may or may not be responsible for signage in the rest of the building but you will be in the area that your staff occupy.

Local Health & Safety advise will be available from Fire & Rescue as well as Local Authorities in addition to sheds loads of stuff on HSE, ROSPA, BSI, Insurance and Union web sites as a starter for ten before calling in the consultants.

Be prepared also a good motto for Girl Guides as well as old Scouts.

Pasc Ruggiero CFIOSH, FIIRSM
Member - 52 posts

I will not comment about a (much larger) H&S consultant competitor. Whoever, you go with:-
1. If someone other than the ‘salesman’ is to provide the technical service, make sure you meet with them BEFORE you enter into a contract. Make sure they are “competent” including qualifications.
2. Look up the Sainsbury fine of £425,000 in 1999 (where the advisor at the site only had a NEBOSH Certificate and was deemed not competent for risks present).
3. Make sure that you do not end up with a ‘standard manual’ e.g. includes risk assessment for DSE but not for using a chainsaw - actually encountered re a tree surgeon. The manual could span 5 binders for a business employing the same number of employees – actually encountered.

Pasc Ruggiero CFIOSH, MCIBSE, MSLL, FRSH, FIIRSM,
Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner & Chartered Building Services Engineer,
www.PRsafety.co.uk

Alan Cox - First for Fire & Safety
Online advisor - 56 posts

Nichola,
I would not be surprised if you are very confused by now because I don't think that you have received the answer that you require. There is no doubt that the situation is very confusing if you have just taken over the responsibility for fire, health and safety so I will try and put it into perspective in respect of the fire aspect which appears to be the your most pressing need.
It appears that it is only one location that you are concerned about and from the problems you have highlighted I doesn't appear that there are major problems there. Your first action should be to try and obtain any paperwork or fire safety reports that have been received in the past - the building may well have had a Fire Certificate and this could be a good starting point. Any other letters from the Building Control Officer / Fire Service or other statutory body could also help together with reports from fire companies. If you can't locate these you can always ask for copies but there may be a charge.
When you have all these documents you may well be able to ascertain for yourself if anything is radically wrong - for example some building alterations / changes may have taken place that were not notified to the relevant authority. If you are unsure about what changes are important you can always seek advice here.
If after this stage you feel that you need professional advice this is where it becomes a little confusing and expensive but I would suggest that look at the other options before you go down this path. In any case the documents that I have suggested you obtain will help greatly in carrying out any Fire Risk Assessment.
Please feel free to contact me and I hope this helps.

Alan
mail@alanfcox.co.uk