Current HSE guidance is quite emphatic about many Covid issues being nothing to do with them

https://www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/roadmap-further-guidance.htm

This amused me because it's almost as if they've been listening to Brian about this being public health, not workplace H&S.

Not long after the outbreak  started, I attended an on-line seminar about the response to the covid  pandemic. At the webinar was the Head of Policy at  the HSE. He didn’t exactly embrace the outbreak as being in the remit of his agency. He basically said do what you can it’s mainly guidance…I think that the HSE have been dragged into this and there not really committed to because they know its nothing to do with occupational health and safety and everything to do with public health and protecting communities.  

I'm intrigued - what was your answer to why Covid is a workplace hazard and flu isn't?

I know lots of my old HSE collegues who have argued that this should never have been H&S based - but unfortuatly Boris like lots of the public now use Health and Safety to catch all and forget its true purpose. All this could have and should have been enacted by Public Health legislation - LA's would have been able to enfoce it everywhere - just like they do food hygiene, and we could have continued to follow the government guidance without being in the mess we are now.

For what they are worth here are my thoughts on this debate.

In order for an employer to be able to risk assess and manage a hazard in the workplace it must be possible for them to be able to:

A - establish if it is present in their workplace and its location. It does not take much thought to recognise that with the exception of certain very specific situations, e.g. working with the virus in a laboratory or treating individuals suffering with Covid-19, this is simply not possible.

B - they must also be able to identify when, where and to what degree exposure exists or is a possibility? How?

C - Where their risk assessment identifies a risk that is deemed to require action there must be ways in which – so far as is reasonably practicable – the risk can be managed.

I could argue that to achieve an adequate control of a hazard that cannot be reliably identified, nor the level of exposure quantified, nor the standard of management that can prevent the damage to health defined, would certainly not meet the SFARP criteria and probably shut the operation down.

Obviously this does not absolve an employer from meeting any regulatory/legal requirements imposed on them, if only in their own and the interests of their employees, but we have to live and operate in the real world, not perhaps the one that some in authority seem to believe exists.

Interesting topic since I just read through this...

First prosecution from HSE COVID-19 Spot Check programme

First prosecution from HSE COVID-19 Spot Check programme

Following multiple health and safety issues being identified during a proactive COVID spot check at a site in Manchester, a construction contractor has been fined.

On 9 July 2020, a HSE inspector performed a proactive COVID-19 spot check at the construction site in the city.

During the inspection, a host of safety issues were identified including working at height, welfare, COVID-19, site security, and electricity. The principal contractor was served with a Prohibition Notice and two Improvement Notices.