Morning lrt

I assume that the incident that you have referred to is this one. Highland hotel guest died after being trapped by bench - REHIS

Perhaps the best of several presss reports that I found except that the REHIS report indicates that the starting point for the fine was £21k rather than the £20k set out in law for maximum penalty on SUMMARY proceedings.

This incident may not be entirely comparable with what happens at your hospice. Probably MUCH heavier furniture which at the hotel trapped the guest between bench and wall.

....and in circumstances where it would have been more difficult for the hotel to defend the charge as there was a history of such bench sinking into soft ground, which had been semi-sorted by propping it up on wooden blocks.

If residents of the hospice and their guests are themselves moving garden furniture then the furniture will be MUCH lighter AND in the event of a bench overturning somebody would not be trapped without being quickly noticed by those around them.

I think that you need to look at the specific circumstances at the hospice. How likely is it that a bench might be overturned should someone fall against it and what is a reasonable assessment of how severe any subsequent injury might be - NOT automatically defaulting to the worst case which is almost invariably at least one dead body.

This is one of those many situations where there cannot be a hard and fast rule as to what to do to reach the test of doing what is "reasonably practicable".

You have to assess the level of risk and offset that against the costs of reducing the risk, one of which is that fixing the bench to the ground may significantly reduce the experience of the residents and their visitors at a time in the residents' lives when unnecessary restrictions might be considered undesirable.

Of course if you follow the mantra that "All accidents are preventable" then you fix the bench down (not least since you have had a near miss) and then put in place a process for checking that it will stay fixed down - but would this be an approach that is sympathetic to the needs of the residents and their visitors?

Hi Lynn

A PS.

I am always in favour of finding reasons to let people do things rather than excuses to stop things - often giving the media the chance to have yet another headline about 'elf and safety bonkers

So, some more thoughts.

For several years, RoSPA had a contract to collate stats for accidents at home and in leisure activities in what are the HASS and LASS databases.

Those came to an end in the age of austerity but RoSPA still have the data for a period up to about 2010 and I doubt that you will find much about garden benches that kill or harm.

Then if you google for accidents involving garden benches (something that few would do without good reason, such as a near miss at a hospice) not much comes up.

Whereas googling the words "accident", "garden bench" and "hotel" all at the same time gets multiple hits, but all about ONE single incident which was considered to be newsworthy by editors who rarely publish anything about similar incidents but might have thought that this one merited attention (a) because the victim was American and (b) because it resulted in a prosecution.

But the prosecution was not defended and so doesn't set any legal precedent as to what would or would NOT be reasonably practicable in any specific set of circumstances.

Now, the HSE who ended up advising the Procurator Fiscal in relation to the hotel fatality sets out what it thinks might be considerations in decision making on the issue of "reasonable practicability" in a document routinely referred to as R2P2 as that's much quicker to say than the full title and is all that you need to find the document via Google.

So, R2P2 suggests that for most scenarios any risk where the Individual Risk of Death per year is less than 1 in a million (1 x 10-6), then it is probably "broadly acceptable" but that for those who are particularly vulnerable (such as residents in a hospice) you should reduce this threshold to 3 chances per 10 million - 3 x 10-7.

Suppose you might count 10 @ broken legs or injuries of similar severity as being equivalent to one fatality AND 200 minor injuries as being equivalent to one fatality (applying similar principles in those in the Rail Safety and Safety Standards Safety Risk Model) you could......

.....collect all published data on garden bench accidents (considering how many garden benches there are in the UK!!!! - for starters we have three in our garden) and calculate what the total risk from garden benches is. 

.... and perhaps multiple that by 10 to allow for most such accidents never reaching the public domain, I very much doubt that the risk is going to get anywhere near an INDIVIDUAL risk of 3 x 10-7.

In contrast, I imagine that it is not uncommon for vulnerable residents of hospices, care homes and hospitals to be fatally or severely injured by simply slipping and tripping, such that their heads or other parts of the body impact with hard surfaces, whether that be the ground, worktops, walls, trees or whatever.

[I don't have the figures but they are almost certainly recorded, albeit with much underrecording]

So, unless as a society we choose to put all such vulnerable people into padded cells so that they get "soft landings" - and thence remove their dignity and amenity - then it seems to me that intervening so as to prevent people moving garden furniture to enrich the resident/visitor experience is likely to be an inappropriate response to a near miss in ONE residential setting for such people.

P

I guess another consideration would be the location of the benches if they were to topple backwards? If the benches are on a patio/paving then there is likely to be a more signifcant injury than compared to if the bench is on a grass lawn?

Must admit, I've been one of those people that has sat at a picnic bench in a beer garden and been subjected to the contents of the table ending up on top of me after sitting the same side as friends with nobody to counterbalnace on the other side - thankfully the only injury was pride and soggy clothing :)

Originally Posted by: lrt

HSE Scotland report a death of hotel guest in similar incident, they recommend securing benches in place to the ground.

Having read the article Peter provided I did not see that particular recommendation in the published synopsis.

Nor do I suspect the incident was similar as you describe the patient knocked the bench over rather than the bench collapsing as the ground gave way under the bench the guest was sat upon. 

There does seem to be a significant split between public bodies and private industry on this matter - councils and hospitals fastening things down whilst hotels and pubs tend not to.

A lot of public seating in high traffc areas such a the sea front tends to be integrated in to walls.

Bringing it back to suitable Risk Assessement:

1) Is the equipment suitable for intended use (not too light / not excessively heavy, broad spreader rails rather than legs to prevent sinking when used on grass)?

2) Is the location suitable for the equipment - firm grounding, level and away from falls, trap & trip points?

3) Do employees & vistors have instruction for the safe use of the equipment?

Originally Posted by: PDarlow

If there is a requirement for instructions for the safe use of a garden bench then I believe humanity really is doomed.

It's not humanity's fault more the ambulance chasers

I agree Roundtuit and unfortunately the ambulance chasers are part of humanity (although they show very little of it).