UK quarry firms slash H&S incidents
The UK quarry industry is only eight short of its self-imposed target to halve health and safety incidents on site by 2009 with new figures from the Quarry Products Association (QPA) showing a 136 fall since 2004 in annual workplace injuries.
QPA members are aiming to reduce RIDDOR reportable incidents a year to 144 by 2009. The 2007 figure of 152 means QPA firms, who account for 90% of UK quarry activity, are only eight short of the target – which is a 50% reduction in the 288 figure of 2004.
The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE’s) chief inspector of quarries Phil Smith welcomed the figures as “commendable” and told MQR that the HSE’s internal figures also showed a downward trend in quarry incidents.
However, he sounded a note of caution. Although the HSE's and QPA's figures are difficult to compare – for example, the latter runs across the calendar year and the former the financial, while the HSE measures all sites coming under the Quarry Regulations and not just QPA members – a blip in performance has been registered.
Smith told MQR: “For the HSE's Target Zero campaign the baseline was set to 317 incidents for the quarry industry in 2004. For the 2005-2006 period this rose to 331. However, for 2006-2007 it dropped to mid-290s. Sometimes for reasons that are not obvious things like this happen.”
QPA director of safety and health Martin Isles warned of not being complacent in light of the figures. He told MQR: “The progress is good as we thought we were stalling but we must keep our foot on the accelerator now we have the figures.”
Despite the downward incident trend there are specific areas of general H&S concern in quarrying. One of these is contractor safety. Collating figures on contractor incidents separately from direct employees is highly problematic.
In response the QPA has started to work on a system that will presuppose the number of contractors in operations to ease member reporting on H&S issues, and help develop a better picture of who is being injured.
Meanwhile, the HSE is currently going through each RIDDOR report from 2007 to separate out the direct employees from contractors. Smith: “Contractor safety is a concern we both share so we need to develop better figures to show us what is happening.”
QPA members are aiming to reduce RIDDOR reportable incidents a year to 144 by 2009. The 2007 figure of 152 means QPA firms, who account for 90% of UK quarry activity, are only eight short of the target – which is a 50% reduction in the 288 figure of 2004.
The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE’s) chief inspector of quarries Phil Smith welcomed the figures as “commendable” and told MQR that the HSE’s internal figures also showed a downward trend in quarry incidents.
However, he sounded a note of caution. Although the HSE's and QPA's figures are difficult to compare – for example, the latter runs across the calendar year and the former the financial, while the HSE measures all sites coming under the Quarry Regulations and not just QPA members – a blip in performance has been registered.
Smith told MQR: “For the HSE's Target Zero campaign the baseline was set to 317 incidents for the quarry industry in 2004. For the 2005-2006 period this rose to 331. However, for 2006-2007 it dropped to mid-290s. Sometimes for reasons that are not obvious things like this happen.”
QPA director of safety and health Martin Isles warned of not being complacent in light of the figures. He told MQR: “The progress is good as we thought we were stalling but we must keep our foot on the accelerator now we have the figures.”
Despite the downward incident trend there are specific areas of general H&S concern in quarrying. One of these is contractor safety. Collating figures on contractor incidents separately from direct employees is highly problematic.
In response the QPA has started to work on a system that will presuppose the number of contractors in operations to ease member reporting on H&S issues, and help develop a better picture of who is being injured.
Meanwhile, the HSE is currently going through each RIDDOR report from 2007 to separate out the direct employees from contractors. Smith: “Contractor safety is a concern we both share so we need to develop better figures to show us what is happening.”
