Posted By halesowen Baggie
What are IOSH posters thoughts on the following scenario.

1. Pregnant lady drives 1-2 hours to get to work, 1-2 hours to get home after work.
Should this driving be considered in the risk assessment for pregnant mothers as she is not 'at work'?

2. The same lady has had her job changed (she will be travelling around the country, but the travelling to and from locations will be included in her hours, i.e she doesnt have to work 8 hours and then add travelling time on top of her day) and to combat any risks from driving has been told to spend nights at an hotel.

3. The same lady does not want to be driving beyond 8 months and has therefore taken holiday to avoid this.

Posted By halesowen Baggie
Would the travelling in question 1 be part of the RA.
She used to work in an office but it would take upto 2 hours each way before starting work and going home after work?

Posted By SLS
Currently, my risk assessments do not include the employees driving to and from work (as they are not being employed by the company at the time).

I am keen to read the views of other members on this subject, as i may find that i need to re-think my assessments.

If the employee is required to drive to various locations throughout her working day, numerous control measures can be easily implemented:

- take extra breaks on the journey.
- mobile phone to be provided.
- colleagues always aware of where she is travelling to, approximately how long the journey may take, the route the employee intends to drive etc.
- if possible, driving duties not undertaken during adverse weather conditions i.e snow, ice, thick fog.

If a company car is provided, i look at issues such as:

- can the steering wheel be adjusted?
- can the employee sit comfortably in the vehicle?
- does the vehicles door allow for easier access/egress?
- is the vehicle fitted with effective climate control?


If the employer has made all reasonable adjustments, but the employee is not happy to continue with her duties, at her stage of pregnancy i would have thought that she should be starting her maternity leave, not using up her holidays.

Posted By Mir-cat
I get the feeling there is more info 'between the lines' than the ones you can see!

I also get the feeling that the company are not exactly making it easy for the lady. If I understand you correctly:
1 - she seemed to be in a base location where she drove to and from work. If this is so you would need to consider this in your risk assessment maybe with the suggestion of flexible (shorter) hours to take away extra risk of accident in heavy traffic etc

2 - her job has been changed to mean she is to spend the same (if not longer) time in the car but has now added travelling around the country - alone - with the potential of staying at hotels, so now you need to bring in the risk of early delivery at the wrong end of the country by a hospital who will have no notes etc etc.

3 - she has probably taken holiday because she wants her maternity with the baby as long as possible and going back to my earlier comment, I get the feeling the company would not be caring and decent and maybe even flexible.

Lastly - pregnant is not disabled (been there, done that) - women are perfectly capable of carrying on relatively normally BUT when you are 7 or 8 months pregnant there are a lot of things that become more uncomfortable and I would suggest that driving for long periods of time and/or over long distances is one of those.

I would be very interested to know if there are other aspects to this question, or am I just being cynical?

Posted By Nick House
Mir-cat, so it's not just me that seems to read into this that Baggie's employer is trying to find out exactly what they can get away without providing/ instigating?

Posted By Steve Cartwright
Each case has to be assessed individually. If the lady in question feels she is up to the task then let her do it. At the end of the day she is only pregnant.
My wife was washing, ironing, doing housework, driving to the shops, doing the shopping, lifting the shopping bags in and out of the car, mowing the lawns, carrying a hoover up the stairs etc right up until she went into hospital.
As long as you make her aware of the risks, let her go to the toilet when ever she wants, make sure she has got a mobile phone, she lets someone know where she is going and she is happy to carry out task, what's the problem.
Women have been giving birth for thousands of years.

Steve

Posted By Steve Cartwright
As long as you have done everything so far as reasonably practicable. Just because she is pregnant does not mean she can't drive.

My point was you can't wrap them up in cotton wool. There is an element of risk in everything we do, from getting up in the morning to going to the toilet. You would be suprised how many people have heart attacks whilst on the toilet, but that's another story.

So like I said, providing you have made her aware of the risks to her and her unborn baby, documented your findings, she is happy to carry on working/driving, put some precautionary measures in place, let her carry on. At the end of the day she is only driving.

Posted By Mir-cat
Baggie

Sorry if you were offended by what you considered was implied - it was not intended.

My response tried to answer the individual questions you set and I stand by the statements, including the implication that the company may not be being as helpful as it could - which is implied by the fact there is a problem there in the first place.

It very definitely is not suggested that it was you or your company, and as you now say it was your previous company it suggests that you are being asked for an opinion in order to be able to sort the problem. I definitely am not making any comment or statement about that issue.

Q1 - I took to mean was included as part of the working day, which I now know otherwise and agree that you would not risk assess every employee.

My response to Q2 was to state that if it is during the commute period then more traffic means more opportunity for another driver to cause an accident or collide with the lady.

Given this seems to have been raised by a problem (and going back to my earlier comment that her company appears to be unhelpful) I wonder if there are other factors here - which is not for this forum to answer e.g why did she take the job and was she pregnant when she took it? If so, how long after she started doing the job did the 'problem' arise? or even was she 'forced' into changing her role (re-structuring etc).

As I said at the start the response was not meant to offend and I apparently was not the only one who read it that way - I think there is a lot of contributory factors to the situation.

Hope you get it sorted