A1.1 Moral, legal And economic reasons for effective H&S management

Question 1

Moral and ethical reasons for H&S?

Answer 1

• The proactive management of h&s in the workplace helps organizations prevent injuries and ill health at work.
• The social attitude to work has undergone a considerable change - previously tolerating poor working conditions to having high expectations of a comfortable working environment, suitable working hours and spending more time with family and friends.
• The corporate manslaughter and corporate homicide act 2007 - introduced following several high profile incidents. Previously almost impossible to provide a successful case because had to prove one person was the controlling mind of the company and they committed the reckless act.
• Employers owe a a common law duty of reasonable care to anyone affected by their activities. Eg. Public, contractors.
• it is unacceptable to put people at risk from health and safety failures.
• Match girls’ strike of 1881 - women striked because they had to endure brain and liver damage due to inhaling white phosphorus.

At the time of the incident, it was seen as acceptable risk due to potential redundancies.

Question 2

Key H&S statistics for Great Britain (2019/20) - (HSE)

Answer 2

• 1.6 million working people suffering from a work-related illness
• 111 workers killed at work
• 693,000 working people sustain an injury at work according to the Labour Force Survey
• 38.8 million working days lost due to work-related illness and workplace injury
• £16.2 billion estimated cost of injuries and ill health from current working conditions (2018/19)

Question 3

The most common H&S injuries and illnesseses in the workplace?

Answer 3

Common work-related health conditions are:

• Stress.
• Musculoskeletal.
• Skin disease.
• Asthma

longer term:

• Asbestos related disease.
• Cancer.
• Hearing loss.
• Vibration related disease.
• Other respiratory diseases.

Most common injuries:

manual handling, slips, trips and falls from height.

Question 4

Legal reasons for H&S?

Answer 4

Legal Reasons:
- PREVENTATIVE - improvement and prohibition notices to prevent such incidents occuring again

• PUNITIVE - prosecution is a punitive action. The courts will decide what penalty to impose, including fines, imprisonment or both
• COMPENSATION - Where something goes wrong, individuals may, in some cases, sue for damages using the civil compensatory laws if they are injured as a result of another person’s negligence. The injured person must show that the defendant had a duty to take reasonable care towards them, and they have suffered the injury through a breach of that duty.
• SELF REGULATIONS - an ideal for organisations to set and enforce their own effective standards

Question 5

Economic reasons for H&S?

Answer 5

• Workplace injury and work-related ill health can impose costs on employers (sick pay, staff replacement, insurance costs), on individuals
  (human costs of pain, grief and suffering) and on the Government (healthcare expenditure)

INSURED COSTS - Can be easily calculated by adding medical costs, compensation payments
made to insured parties and plant and building damages. Direct costs are usually insurable by businesses.

UNINSURED COSTS - hidden costs which are not covered by insurers, such as production delays, loss of clients, time investigating accidents, retraining people,
overtime costs, fines and increase of insurance premiums.