One ever-popular health and safety issue on social media concerns the dangerous practices that people continue to engage in when working at height.

Incredulous bystanders, armed with their mobile phones, are able to photograph the latest misuse of ladders or steps as workers foolishly attempt to defy the laws of gravity.

Inadequately prepared, these 'cowboy builders' often improvise means of reaching areas well outside their reach. They have supreme confidence in their abilities, which - they seem to believe - include everything from the balance and the dexterity of a trained gymnast to the strength of a strongman and the analytical capabilties of a mathematician. The ladder structures often balance precariously, sometimes aided by assistants who have to support the structure with brute strength while the ladder user is fully extended from the topmost rung.

However, health and safety statistics reveal that falls from height continue to be the most common type of fatal accident, accounting for 29% of all UK workplace deaths in 2014-15. Also, it is a major contributor to loss of working days due to recovery from injuries sustained through falling. Regrettably, these figures remain stubbornly high, showing no indication of decreasing.

So, as the bystanders capture the action, they have every reason to fear the worst, as things are likely to have a sad ending - if not today, then in the future, as luck and extremely good fortune cannot go on forever.

All photos from @davidgcant on Twitter. Be sure to follow @LabelSourceUK if you're a Twitter user yourself!

This Health & Safety Week, make sure you're doing everything you can to keep your employees safe!

If you're an employer, you have a number of responsibilities to fulfil when it comes to the health and safety of your workers. These responsibilities are described in detail on the HSE website, but today, we at Label Source would like to focus on 5 of the most important duties that you need to be aware of.

As an employer, you must:

1. Identify any potential risks within the workplace and decide what measures must be taken to control them.

2. Explain any and all risks to your employees. You must also explain what you're doing to control these risks. Make sure that every member of your team fully understands what you are telling them.

3. Protect your workers from harm in the workplace. Do everything you can to minimise the risk of accidents/injuries/illnesses while encouraging all employees to work together to do the same.

4. Train your employees to do their jobs safely and correctly. This training must be provided free of charge.

5. Provide any equipment that your employees will need to stay safe while working. Again, these items must be provided free of charge; possible examples include safety goggles, hard hats, ear protection, work gloves, dust masks, high-visibility clothing, and any other pieces of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) that might be necessary. You are also obliged to provide first aid facilities, toilets, clean drinking water, and washing facilities for your workers.

Useful Health & Safety Products from Label Source

Personal Protection Safety Signs

Health and Safety Posters

Electrical Warning Labels

Chemical Hazard Signs & Labels

This week is Health & Safety Week throughout the UK, and as you can probably imagine, we at Label Source will be watching the conversation surrounding this event with great interest as the week unfolds. According to SHP Online, the focus for Health & Safety Week 2016 is 'inspiring excellence in the profession', specifically by recognising the people who strive to achieve excellent H&S standards within their organisations.

Of course, providing a safe working environment is the responsibility of the employer first and foremost, but this does not mean that workers should not be encouraged to contribute to health and safety culture within the company. Here are some suggestions for improving company-wide engagement with health and safety practices:

• Reward workers for their initiative. The 'Employee of the Month' award is a common motivational gimmick, but instead of simply handing out a monthly award to the person who did the best (a nebulous standard if ever there was one), why not recognise and reward workers specifically for their ongoing contributions to health and safety? You could even offer a monthly prize (e.g. a gift voucher) to encourage workers to constantly be on the lookout for opportunities to improve workplace safety.
  
  
• Organise a health and safety presentation (to be delivered by your employees). Lecturing your workers on health and safety protocol tends to be a tedious experience for all involved, so why not flip the script and encourage a group of employees to put together an informal presentation based on their own research and ideas? This is a good way to get your employees thinking more carefully about H&S measures and how they are deployed throughout the company, and talented staff members will be able to deliver a presentation that gets the whole team interested too!
  
  
• Include your staff when carrying out/renewing regular health and safety measures. Excluding those who are directly involved in the running of the company, most employees don't think about H&S very often because it's not part of their job. The resulting apathy towards H&S can be countered by getting workers involved in the day-to-day management of the company's health and safety system - possible examples include asking employees to order any new safety labels that may be required, enlisting them to help with informal risk assessments, or even just regularly reminding them of established protocol (e.g. via fire drills and refresher training).
  
  
• Quiz your employees! There are probably safety signs and hazard notices dotted all over your workplace, but do the people who use the premises on a daily basis actually know what everything means? To find out, organise a quiz like this one - offer a prize for perfect scores, and give everyone time to revise and brush up their knowledge beforehand!

Be sure to follow Label Source on Twitter for more health and safety insight and conversation during Health & Safety Week (as well as all year round!)

Arguably, one of the best things about our country, is the fact that we have so many sites of outstanding natural beauty and cultural importance, which the plublic can enjoy for free. It's fantastic that we can offer our tourists and countrymen a taste of our history without commercialisation, but it's also important to remember that without regulation comes risk. 

When a space is beyond the realm of regular monitoring and supervision, it only stands to reason that safety will be compromised, particularly in isolated areas with ageing structures. While some may say that the duty to act sensibly and safely remains with the visitor, this hardly seems like an adequate reason to exclude standard safety procedures from these highly popular sites.

Earlier this month, news broke that there had been disagreements amongst councillors and residents in West Yorkshire, after safety signs were erected on the site of the Top Withens ruins, known for their association with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. The brightly coloured but not overly large signs were criticised soon after their installation, with many claiming that the addition spoilt the natural view. After much discussion and deliberation, Yorkshire Water came to the decision to remove and replace the signs, and are are currently working on a replacement that will 'blend in' with the landscape.

While I'm sure we can all agree that an appreciation of natural beauty is important, we can't help but feel that making safety signs 'blend in' completely defeats the object. Safety signs are meant to stand out to catch the eye of the reader, they are meant to be prominent in order for the public to comprehend their warnings. When safety signs are simply put in place in order to tick a box, they become completely redundant. Protecting public safety should always be a priority, and without warnings not to climb or deface the structure, this valuable piece of history could well be lost altogether! 

We can only hope that when the sign redesign is actioned, those involved will keep in mind that while it doesn't hurt to make it more visually appealing, the ultimate purpose should always be to preserve the important messages it is meant to convey. As far as safety is concerned, substance should always come above style.

As Michael Crawford is preparing to reprise his much loved character Frank Spencer from the classic BBC television sitcom “Some Mothers do ‘Ave ‘Em” for sports relief, Crawford is famous for performing is own stomach-churning stunts which famously include, clinging onto the back of a bus on roller skates, driving off the end of a pier, sitting in a car hanging over a cliff.

Whilst talking about the reprisal of his character to the Daily Mail, he opened up about the stunts that he cannot perform due to health and safety laws; “I think the one where I am taking my driving test and I drive off the end of the pier into the sea. I don't think they'd allow that now.'

Michael says 'these days it's all much more difficult with health and safety rules. We didn't have those 42 years ago.'

Health and safety laws exist to safeguard people against being seriously or fatally injured at work, or made unwell within their work place. The regulations are in place to help protect people well-being and save lives, not prevent people from having fun.

Health and safety receives a lot of bad press, especially when companies impose “ridiculous” bans in the name of health and safety, for instance, the holiday resort giant, Butlins banned dodgem cars bumping into each other in their Skegness resort, the banning of street parties after the royal wedding, flying kites on a popular beach in Yorkshire and children being banned from playing football at school – unless the ball is made from sponge. 

These examples cause uproar in the media, with people exclaiming that “health and safety has gone mad!” and in these instances, yes it has! These are examples of people wrongly citing health and safety as a reason to prevent people from doing relatively harmless activities.

Granted, bumping into people in a dodgem car is not as dangerous as somebody sitting in a car that’s hanging over a cliff. But the media (most of the time) does not portray the importance of health and safety and why some bans are implemented in a positive light.

This bad press that health and safety receives is detrimental to the cause. The now common misguided conception of health and safety has led people away from focusing on the prevention of real workplace risks. Say, for example, your company have been performing a task a certain way for years and regulations come in guiding you on how you can complete the task in a safer manner, or prevent the task from being completed outright, it’s not health and safety gone mad, the regulations are in place to help you maintain high safety standards and protect your workforce.

For more Health and Safety news follow us on Facebook and Twitter!