The place I am working at present do not seem to have any tool box talks or SSOW. I work in residential establishments for the elderly, people with mental impairment, young people. I would still have some for the likes of, Using a chair hoist, Fire Safety, Manual handling of items and or people, Use of evac. Chair, Personal Hygiene, Do other people think these are necessary?

SSoW means different things to different people Invictus. For me SSoW is the sum of supervision, information, instruction, equipment selection, care & maintenance, etc. Some of the things you mention need formal training, e.g. a tbt for a hoist isn't enough. In residential care, & in a day-to-day context, much is centred around the individual care plan, PEEP, etc. and it is those documents that may be referenced as the system of work.

Hi Invictus I worked in healthcare for 25+ years as a nurse, manager and latterly H&S Manager and have never conducted TBTs, as we traditionally know them, for direct care staff. In some settings I worked in, as part of the handover process there was a 'safety brief', which was primarily about patient-related issues (and rightly so), but it gave the Charge Nurse the opportunity to highlight any safety issues regarding manual handling, infection control and so on. With some open discussion and negotiation, I managed to get some wider OHS issues mentioned too, but delivered by the C/N, not me. Within care settings it can be difficult to set specific time aside for such things, so it's better to weave such comms into existing systems. There is a lot of information in patient care plans with input from the multidisciplinary teams as Ron has pointed out, these could be referenced as the system of work. PM me if you need any more info. Cheers S.

No I would never use them as a substitute but feel that I don't want to create them and then they are not used. I remeber being audited at one time and because they were not used or staff didn't sign to say they had had them we were marked down. I usually just create one SSOW and this is then used as the tool box talk.

The term TBT in this environment has little real meaning to people who do not ever touch a too box. They may well use a different term or you need to devise one that has apparent relevance such as Tea and Talk etc. TBT works in the environment of trades persons but not really elsewhere. As already stated SSoWs have a different meaning and these should be in place in any case if any form of local training is to be undertaken. I do however also believe that such talks are an invaluable tool for communication of even corrective actions or any other safety message for that matter. They do however need to be two way and not just talking head.

There are many ways to communicate. The medium is often dependant on working environment. For example, Stand Downs have become a popular means of communicating with the workforce. Like all things, done correctly they can be an excellent medium, done poorly - a waste of time. Communication as Bob states needs to be a two-way process if it's to be meaningful. TBTs tend to be one-way, hence I have never really warmed to them. As I said earlier, they have a use, but very limited in my opinion.