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Posted By Jon-P
I was wondering what type of legal obligation is over our heads as safety advisors/managers/facilitators etc whilst walking around on a day to day basis.
For example……
If you were walking through a busy town centre “off duty” and you notice that scaffolding wasn’t erected in a safe manner i.e. no kickboards in place would there be a legal obligation on you to inform members on that site?
Just being curious…….
Thanks all
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Posted By A Campbell
Legal obligation?... No
Moral obligation.. Yes
As the Meercat says in the advert...
simples!
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Posted By Peter F
You don't have any oligation.
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Posted By Bob Y
Surely there is a moral/ethical obligation!
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Posted By A Campbell
Bob,
You might find there are non h&s professionals who use this forum and may not think they have a moral or ethical obligation!
But legally they don't ... like the old poem.. I chose to look the other way!
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Posted By Peter F
Disagree I still believe that you have no obligation.
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Posted By water67.
What about the obligation to your self..not to end up going mad.. As would surely be the case if you tried to correct every deviation from good H&S, working practice etc. as you live your daily life!!!!!!!!!!
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Posted By Bob Shillabeer
You may think there is a safety problem with what you notice at a place you pass by but it could be the operator is perfectly aware of the problem and has decided it is below the level requiring action, you don't know because you are not involved. But, you can always report it either to the site manager or inform the HSE and let them deal with it. I know just telling the HSE is not truly answering the moral question but at least you have raised the problem with the correct authority. There is n legal obligation upon you as a safety professional to report the 'problem' in the same way as a normal member of the public but you must act in whatever your concience dictates.
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Posted By Steve Clark
Good job there's no legal obligation to report - every episode of DIY SOS or Grand Designs would see switchboards inundated with calls reporting W@H breaches.
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
It is not a simple question. For example, it would depend on the level of risk and whom might be affected.
A year or two back two houses were being built near where I live and walk to the station. I noticed a lack of PPE and general good practice, but hey, not unusual on a small site. Anyway, one particular day I saw a HIAB operator lifting a palette of bricks over the head of a couple of builders. Now, do I stop the HIAB operator, warn the operatives of the danger, or would I have been told to offski? Rightly or wrongly I said nothing.
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Posted By tdunbar
You would probably get arrested by new age plod and hauled before the PC court for interefering with a person's right to privacy.
Is that a cynical response?
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Posted By martinw
Yes.
Having read all of the above and the previous thread on this, why not go one step further? IOSH has the power to remove anyone from its ranks for serious disciplinary reasons which has the effect of making it more difficult get H&S recognition/work. Why not have a formal register of H&S professionals as with (say)nurses or doctors, which means that you have strict guidelines which tell you your obligations while both on and off duty; and will give us an independent professional status rather than the internal recognition system which we now have?
If IOSH or whoever can ensure that you are struck off and therefore not able to work legally within health and safety it would solve the problem with this thread and also kill a number of other birds at the same time. If this seems unlikely, I worked for years in health and safety before even becoming aware of IOSH and the company I worked for at the time did not know about IOSH either. That is because they did not have to. Maybe that should change.
Apologies if this has been discussed in a previous thread before I became aware of IOSH.
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Posted By FAH
This thread is going down a couple of increasingly familiar roads.
The original question is very similar in concept to one that we had a few weeks back about informing those who control another site of identifiable poor practices occuring - boy, did that get a few hackles up!
I find the additionally introduced concept of IOSH attaining a status eqivalent to the BMA or other medical bodies incredibly worrying & one that I consider should be re-opened as a thread of its' own in my opinion.
Frank Hallett
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Posted By Philip McAleenan Martin, You suggestion is one that will lead to a negation of health and safety in the workplace. Consider this, every competent worker is by definition working in health and safety, if it were not so, they would not be competent. Health and safety is integral to what workers and managers do, and the object of the profession is to assist in the project whereby all workers and companies become competent in that aspect of their business/work. To that end the profession is neither the owner nor guardian of health and safety knowledge and expertise, but a useful and often valuable adjunct to industry. At some point the profession will go out of business either because it has contributed to the successful achievement of this objective or, if your idea is followed to its logical conclusion, it becomes a barrier to the successful re-integration of health and safety into worker and company competence. IOSH implicitly recognises this position and stated this in a 2005 workshop entitled “Mind the Gap” and I quote from it; “In a perfect world, OSH practitioners would gradually work themselves out of jobs as workers and management became sufficiently competent and resourced in OSH”. (The report is available at this link http://www.iosh.co.uk/fi...cal/Mindthegap250505.pdf ) Unlike doctors and nurses, who have a necessary social function in as much as no-one else can do what they do; the safety professional operates in many environments in which they are ultimately superfluous, that is the advice and support that they offer can be given by other competent persons who are not safety professionals. However, any professional person, whether belonging to a professional body or not, works to a code of conduct that is implicit in the mantle of professionalism that they don and is made explicit in their public declaration to practice. Whether they practice solely within the sphere of employment or extend it Samaritan like to the wider community, is a matter of personal choice rather than legal or moral obligation, but in doing so the professional will remain cognisant of good practice and conduct her/himself in a manner consistent with their competence. Regards, Philip
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Posted By martinw
Thanks for that Phillip - I was not a member of IOSH in 2005. I feel that your argument is not progressive unfortunately, nor is the percieved position of IOSH. In a perfect world H&S people may be out of a job because everyone became supremely safety conscious, but until that happens I will continue to look at the world as it is and act on the world as it is. In the medical field rather than those in the field becoming intellectually anodyne, they specialise to extend and improve their chosen competence. And their conduct is to do with their profession and is not in any way means tested or related to their level of competence.It is a given.
I do not mean to be rude - that really is not my point - but please remember that before nurses became their own profession those roles were normally carried out by nuns. Without simplifying too much, if they had not pushed for recognition they would not be the profession they are today, in the role which others cannot do. Before nurses took on that role and it was a religious role, there was no protection for the practitioner or the patient.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the sentiment that we should stand still and do nothing with the idea that our aim is to make our roles ultimately redundant, as for me unless society changes and buiness is carried out for non-financial purposes, our roles will remain exasperatingly necessary.
Martin
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
Martin
Just to add my penny's worth on your subject about IOSH etc. It appears to be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut!
Surely, there is enough training and other impositions that h&s practitioners have to go through without the threat of being struck off as well. We all make mistakes from time to time, just like doctors and nurses. They rarely get stuck off by the BMA and only for gross negligence.
Anyway, the original thread asked whether there was a legal obligation and there is not. A moral one indeed, but circumstances will dictate, such as self protection (ie a smack in the mouth for being nosy).
Ray
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Posted By martinw
Ray
I appreciate your view, and to a point I agree. It is precisely the worst case scenario that becomes important in this situation. In a previous role I had no experience which IOSH would commend as relevant in terms of health and safety, and had no health and safety qualifications at the time. However, I rewrote the health and safety policy for the organisation, rewrote their risk assessments, brought them up to where they needed to be - because I knew that I could do it and I am plausible. I became responsible for the health and safety of an £18m turnover company with no formal training or experience per se. And I had never heard of IOSH, nor am I blowing my own trumpet.
And if I had been sacked for incompetence I would have just gone somewhere else as there is nothing to stop me doing so.
Do you agree that incompetent people should not be allowed to bring this profession into disrepute? Do you agree that we should have some input into this?
Martin
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
Martin
That dare I say is a different situation altogether. In the scenario you have described it is the company who were at fault and not the individual. If companies wish to cut corners or save money by employing someone to do a job they are not qualified to do, then so be it. However, it is the company who will end up in court following a preventable accident.
IOSH have a code of conduct and if I am asked/instructed to carry out something which I believe to be immoral or illegal, then as a chartered member I default to the code of conduct. No one has yet challenged me.
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Posted By martinw
Ditto. Just because I did not have PostNoms or specific qualifications did not mean that I was not capable and I could then as now demonstrate competence. You are right, the company was taking a big risk but from their inside point of view, it was a privately owned company with no concept of what should be required in a marketable H&S professional. Their mantra was money and mine was safety. I got into the role I did because they repeatedly refused to take on someone in a health and safety role as they saw it as something to be used to avoid prosecution, rather than in a proactive sense.
But my point remains - the company that I worked for could have binned me with no remifications for me. I could have gone on to work in another company in health and safety in the same field, as there are a lot in that field which have the same outlook(I no longer work in that field!). This is not about me - it is about industry protection for the practitioner, the client, the employer. It is great when professionals like yourself can stand tall and say to anyone that they are welcome to call your competence into question as you are more than confident that you can easily stand your ground and prove that you are indeed competent. However, there is too much scope for people within the industry who do not have to ensure competency. There are specific checks which have to be carried out for a lot of roles in various fields prior to being taken on, for the protection again of all involved. No checks other than what the prospective employer decides are relevant are required for the majority of H&S roles. Blame the employer for being lax; blame the candidate for getting into a position for which they are not competent. Why not take a wider view and say that you can blame the profession for having a system where the situation described is allowed to take place?
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Posted By Zorro
Martin W.
the question was 'do we have a legal obligation?' and the answer is no, we have no obligation to anyone with the exception of the person who pays us. Drs or nurses do not have an obligation when not on duty to assist anyone.
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Posted By martinw
There is a difference between duty of care and duty of law. Re the duty of care, nurses when not on duty have the same level of responsibility as any other citizen. But in law, accountability means that individuals are liable to be held responsible for a course of action and have a duty of care intrinsic to their professional standing whether on or off duty, in practice or not. Ethically, nurses and midwives must use their professional knowledge, judgement and skills to make a decision based on evidence for best practice and in the person's best interests, and be able to justify their decisions.
You are right, in that you will not find it written down in the NMC or RGN etc policies but if you read the above it is clear that not assisting is seen as incongruous with professional standards unless other factors are present which preclude assisting safely.
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