Risk Assessment is the spine of health and safety management - it connects the limbs to the brain and is the distributor of instruction - this is how we do this safely, this is how we lower risk of harm. A neat little blueprint on how to avoid harm from the hazards we interact with. Risk assessments is actually part of our everyday lives from the minute we open our eyes on a morning to the minute we rest our busy little heads we are risk assessing. For example, can I have 5 m

For some of us with a sense of humour (and believe me you definitely need one!) this little comedy of errors is something you have to have a laugh at because if you didn't you could seriously put your blood pressure right up the chimney! Don't gasp too loudly I obviously don't take any pleasure in the pain of others.....honestly! Nope you can put down those pearls as us safety practitioners don't actually want you to have accidents, this is in fact the reason we spend a lot o

Being mindful of what your face is doing is about the most difficult part of an audit or an inspection (which are two very different things by the way and I will get into that in a different blog post). The person charged with walking around with you is usually the person who ends up sorting out the issues so they watch you like a hawk! And I can't blame them, my beloved profession has a bad rep as we have already discussed and it's they who will be explaining to the holders

Being a health and safety practitioner feels a bit like being a pantomime villain, people like to boo comedically when you turn up and then as you walk around places you can see actual fear in people's eyes. I suppose I am bit like Jafar running around advising and influencing - this occurred to me whilst watching Aladdin - is this why people hate health and safety? The truth is that this is all a misconception and it is born of the very early days of Health and Safety. When