It appears that has been a bit of 'off-court' backhand rallying taking place between some big hitters in the Safety and Tennis worlds last week. During the first week of the prestigious Wimbledon event there was media reports that the All England Lawn Tennis Club (who run Wimbledon) had denied tennis fans the ability to watch the action on a large screen from the grassy hill known as 'Murray Mound'. It appears they had made the decision on the basis of 'health and safety', during a period of heavy rain, as they did not want the fans to injure themselves by slipping on the wet grass.  Incensed by the media reports, and what she say as health and safety being used as an excuse yet again, the Chair of the Health and Safety Executive, Judith Hackitt wrote an open letter to the AELTC. She stated "There is nothing in health and safety legislation which prohibits the continued broadcasting of centre-court action to the crowds on the hill during the rain.... If [you were] concerned about people slipping and suing for their injuries the message should have made clear the decision was ‘on insurance grounds." However the Chief of the AELTC quickly responded claiming it was inappropriate for the HSE Chair to write an open letter in such manner without due information or making relevant enquiries as to the decision. He added "The decision was indeed based on the grounds of the safety of those present and was made by relevant professionals who have a substantial experience of the terrace and the event."

Whether we agree with the HSE or the AELTC, the matter that concerns me is that we live in a society where the HSE feels that it has to go on the offensive ('as the best form of defense') when the media is very quick to report on 'public fun' being spoiled on the basis of health and safety. Having worked in event safety for a number of years, sometimes it is extremely important to make hard decisions in the interests of participant and spectator safety, which may appear to be spoiling the fun. Unfortunately such decisions get mixed in with the 'unreasonable' judgements where health and safety is used as an excuse and the media seem to love telling us about (to fuel the fire).

At SMC we believe in pragmatic health and safety management and have been working with many event organisers to ensure the successful and safe running of their events to the enjoyment of all those involved. We hope this continues....

I watched with interest ITV's Tonight programme entitled 'Health and Safety on the Frontline'. The programme discussed whether health and safety legislation was restricting or limiting the emergency services from conducting their duties. It outlined several recent incidents where the emergency services had made decisions whereby service officers were prevented from 'taking risks' in attempting to rescue members of the public, on the grounds of health and safety. They had also conducted a survey amongst emergency service personnel on whether health and safety was having an impact on their performance.

Whilst I agreed in part with the underlying message of the need to review health and safety legislation (which the government supports) to reduce the bureaucracy in health and safety (which I also support), I was a little disappointed that they consistantly blamed health and safety for the decisions that the emergency services had made.

My experience of working in health and safety (and with the emergency services on projects) is that often it is not the health and safety legislation that is to blame, but the misinterpretation of such that creates some of the bureaucratic decisions and policies that are constantly criticised. Coupled with the litigious socitey that we find ourselves in, the role of lawyers and the insurance companies, and the public that demand action when service personnel are killed,  I can understand, but not necessarily agree with, the reasons why senior emergency personnel make some bureaucratic decisions that they believe are in the interests of protecting their personnel (and albeit their own liablity if something was to go wrong).

I keep saying this, and will no doubt keeping saying it, its all about sensible, and pragmatic health and safety. I hope we continue to work with the emergency services and the essential public services, providing sensible consultancy advice and training, to try and bring this message home. 

SMC Ltd exhibited at the recent IOSH Conference on 15-16 March 2011. The event held at the ExCel Conference and Exhibition Centre in London was attended by over 500 professionals from the Health and Safety field.

Over the 2 day event we met some of our existing clients and friends, and met many new companies who talked to us about the Health and Safety Training and Consultancy services we had to offer. There was quite a bit of interest in our NEBOSH courses and Independent Auditing services. We also took a number of free gifts such as pens and a branded tape measures with torch. These went down very well with the delegates, so much so, we had people coming to the stand asking for them.

We hope to be exhibiting at IOSH 2012 in Manchester.

Welcome to the Blog on the brand new Safety Management Consultancy website. We hope that if you are looking for Health and Safety Consultancy or Health and Safety Training, you find the site very useful.

We have a philosophy of a fresh and dynamic approcah to Health and Safety Management and hope that this is very much reflected in the look and style of the site.

The Consultancy section contains details of the services that we offer including our retainer packages for ‘Competent’ Adviser Support. The Training section contains the details of our accredited courses (from NEBOSH and IOSH) in addition to the bespoke training that can be delivered in-house.

There is also a Course Calender which can be viewed by Month & Week which provides information on the dates and venues of our NEBOSH and IOSH courses. You can also book courses online.

We hope you enjoy the new site.