Royal Wedding – Health and Safety

With the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton fast approaching, lots of people will be building up to celebrate with get-togethers and street parties. We're positively encouraging everyone to get out there and mark the occasion!

Helping the nation celebrate

There's a lot of myths around health and safety, especially when it comes to what people should and shouldn't do. When it comes to parties and celebrations, there's often no obligation under health and safety law at all, so you're able to go right ahead.

Here's our top ten tips to organising your celebration:

1. Decide the size of your event and where you are going to hold it – this will help you find out if there are extra things you need to do or if you can just go ahead with your friends.
2. If you're organising a celebration where you're not making money or employing anyone, then visit HSE's Volunteering pages^[1] for great advice about whether any laws apply.
3. Before your celebration, have a quick think about making your party a complete success. If there's lots of traffic alongside your street party and you have lots of children coming, thinking about the risks in advance can be helpful but isn’t always necessary unless you’re a commercial organisation. This isn’t health and safety, just common sense.
4. If you're having a big celebration, speak to your local council about whether you need any extra permissions to do with road closures, alcohol, selling food or performances. You can find the contact details at DirectGov – Connect to your council ^[2]
5. Lots of people are offering advice on holding street parties without getting tangled up in red tape. We really like these guides:
   • Communities and Local Government – Your guide to organising a street party or fete ^[3]
   • DirectGov – Organising a small street party or fete ^[4]
   • The Street Party Site – Your resource for street party planning, advice and support ^[5]
6. Have a look at HSE's Myth of the Month^[6] – here we've taken a light hearted look at some of the silly stories that have made it in the news…and they might help you deal with the jobsworths!
7. If you're planning on running a big event to make money by selling tickets, you will have responsibilities to your customers.
8. Challenge anyone who says you can't go ahead 'for health and safety reasons'. Find out exactly what it is that they think is wrong – often it's not health and safety at all. If there's a genuine issue, ask what you can do to put it right…mostly there's an easy way to make sure everyone has fun while staying safe.
9. Remember that we've celebrated Royal weddings as a nation before without getting tied up in red tape and compensation culture. Go out and tell everyone it can be done again and be a champion for common sense.
10. Have fun and enjoy the celebrations!

Case Studies from London2012

HSE is publishing this series of short case studies to promote some of the new and practical solutions used to manage health, safety and welfare during construction of the London 2012 projects. We hope that they will be of help to others working in construction and inspire further ideas to deal with hazards and manage risk.

Reducing two manual handling risks with one device

Background

The Olympic Stadium bowl design involved installation of concrete pre-cast steps providing access corridors to the terraces. In addition, the stadium roof support system relied on heavy cabling that needed to be moved into position.

Hazard

Manual handling of the heavy pre-cast concrete units and the roof support cables involved significant risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD).

Solution

A simple lifting device was manufactured to allow both the pre-cast units and the cables to be lifted safely and easily. It worked by using a simple fulcrum action which significantly reduced the human force required to lift both items.

The first design (photo 1) of the lifting arm was used exclusively for the pre-cast concrete units.

The construction team soon realised that the same engineering solution could be adopted to to assist in lifting and placing the roof support cables (photo 2).

The lifting aid was designed with wheels to allow it to be easily and safely used and moved around the site.

Photo 1: Precast concrete unit lifting aid

Photo 2: Lifting aid adapted for additional uses

Companies fined

ACCIDENTS TO BE REDUCED AT ‘LIVE EVENTS’

Accidents in the live events industry should be at an all time low this summer with more than 2,000 contractors currently holding a ‘safety passport’ from Safety Passport Alliance (SPA).The ‘Live Events Safety Passport’ is the first qualification of its kind in the industry, a one-day health, safety and environment course for anyone involved in the production of such events as festivals, concerts, theatre, television, sports and exhibitions.

Ray Gibbs, managing director of SPA, said: “With the season for outdoor events upon us, most event organisers will need contractors to visit the site on a regular basis to carry out installation, maintenance and repair work. Unfortunately, these contractors can pose an unknown risk as it’s not always possible to check that they have been trained properly to an acceptable level of health & safety.

“This is where SPA comes in. Contract workers and company employees who complete our live events training course can prove their knowledge of basic health & safety by showing their passport, which is similar to a driving licence, complete with a tamper-proof photograph to reduce fraud,” he said.

SPA’s training programme will ensure that all contractors have a thorough grounding in general health & safety, covering topics such as accidents, organising for safety, key health & safety requirements, risk assessment and potential hazards such as fire and electricity.

Many key players in the industry send their people on the SPA courses, such as Deep Blue, White Light and G Force, while Stagesafe, The Event Safety Shop and Showstars are also SPA training providers.

Among the tutors on the SPA programme are those from within the industry itself. For example, Stuart Milne, director of operations at Showstars, which provides manpower for both indoor and outdoor events.

Mr Milne said the programme has been designed for all those working within the industry – riggers, lighting & sound crews, carpenters, electricians, stage hands etc.

“We have hundreds of full-time and part-time recruits join us every year and we insist on their attending the SPA health & safety passport scheme,” he said.

“There didn’t used to be such training courses available and so we ran our own, but when the Production Services Association (the trade association for the live events production industry) came to us with this new course they had designed with SPA we signed up to it immediately,” said Mr Milne, whose company erected screens and barriers in Hyde Park for the Royal Wedding and has contracts for the Olympics, whose organisers are insisting on safety passports.

“In fact, our staff are so well trained that one of our crew bosses is also a course tutor,” said Mr Milne.

SPA, which works alongside British industry to create specially tailored health & safety training programmes, has helped reduce serious and fatal accidents in certain industries by as much as 75 per cent.

Details of the training courses can be obtained from Safety Pass Alliance (SPA), Unit 3, The Court, Holywell Business Park, Northfield Road, Southam, Warwickshire CV47 0FS Tel: (01926) 817450 or by visiting www.safetypassports.co.uk

Ends May 2011

SPA Petrol Retail Passport Expiry Dates

The current SPA Renewal guideline of 6 months before and 3 months after on expiry of passport was discussed at the recent PRNSG meeting. It was felt that 6 months is adequate forewarning to renew a passport and, that the 3 month after was not in the best interests of contractor safety or client liability.

Consequently, PRNSG decided that with effect from Monday 2^nd April 2012 the 3 month grace period will end and the expiry date will be the definitive cessation of the passport.

Please inform all clients and contractors of this and encourage them to Renew in the 6 month prior to expiry.

Please Note: Delegates will lose no time on their passport by renewing it early. Cards always keep their original expiry date plus 3 years.

Please visit the SPA Website on www.safetypassports.co.uk and click “Upcoming Training Events” to find the next available course.

Alternatively call the SPA office on (01926) 817450.

SPA Petrol Retail Passport Expiry Dates

The current SPA Renewal guideline of 6 months before and 3 months after on expiry of passport was discussed at the recent PRNSG meeting. It was felt that 6 months is adequate forewarning to renew a passport and, that the 3 month after was not in the best interests of contractor safety or client liability.

Consequently, PRNSG decided that with effect from Monday 2^nd April 2012 the 3 month grace period will end and the expiry date will be the definitive cessation of the passport.

Please inform all clients and contractors of this and encourage them to Renew in the 6 month prior to expiry.

Please Note: Delegates will lose no time on their passport by renewing it early. Cards always keep their original expiry date plus 3 years.

Please visit the SPA Website on www.safetypassports.co.uk and click “Upcoming Training Events” to find the next available course.

Alternatively call the SPA office on (01926) 817450.