As an employer, it is your duty to ensure that employees receive immediate care, if they are involved in an accident or fall ill at work. The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 state that employers should provide adequate tools and knowledge in the workplace, for an efficient response in the case of an employee illness or injury. This includes having first aid equipment which suits the risks of your working environment, and having enough staff who are first aid trained, in order to cope in a medical emergency. For businesses who deal directly with members of the public, this requirement is also extended to their needs, should complications from an illness or accident occur.

In order to provide the best level of protection, you should consider a number of factors, from the size of your organisation and working conditions, to the individual needs of your staff members. You should also ensure that these measures are properly highlighted to staff and other members of the public, in order to ensure that they are easily accessible in the event of an emergency.

Here are some essential first aid signs, warnings and instructions that should be displayed in your workplace: 

First Aid Box

A first aid box is a basic requirement for any workplace, and should be easily spotted and located by anyone who needs it.

Defibrillator Safety Sign

Defibrillators are becoming more and more common in workplaces, particularly at organisations with public access or with particularly heightened risks. These pieces of medical equipment can provide life-saving attention when used by trained members of staff, and should be properly displayed for rapid attention to the medical emergency in question.

First Aiders List

This sign allows those with first aid training to be identified quickly in the case of a medical emergency, which is particularly useful for larger organisations. 

For more medical safety and information signs, click here!

We're always talking about workplace health and safety on this blog, but most of the news stories we look at concern physical injuries: severed fingers, broken bones, that sort of thing.

However, stats suggest that the greatest threat to the health and safety of Britain's workers is not rotating blades, slippery surfaces, unprotected edges, or anything like that.

According to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which surveyed roughly one thousand health and safety representatives across the UK, the main concern for this country's H&S officials in 2016 was... stress! More...

Last week, we looked at the Alton Towers rollercoaster crash that has been in the news recently and asked what could be learned from the accident that resulted in a number of serious injuries and a multi-million pound fine for park owners Merlin Entertainments.

Probably the single most important takeaway from this mess concerns the importance of risk assessments. Paul Paxton, the lawyer who represented the injured parties in court, criticised Merlin's "catastrophic failure to assess risk" in a statement to the press, and it's hard not to agree with him; you can't help but wonder if the accident at Alton Towers could have been prevented with a more thorough assessment of possible dangers beforehand.

Of course, risk assessments are crucially important in any line of work - just because you're not working with rollercoasters and thrill rides doesn't mean that people can't get hurt on your premises! We at Label Source stock a range of risk assessment kits that will help you to carry out a thorough assessment of all the possible hazards in your workplace. Available kits include:

• Workplace Risk Assessment Kit - This general risk assessment kit (pictured above) is ideal for identifying and minimising hazards in any work environment.
   
• COSHH Risk Assessment Kit - This kit specifically deals with threats posed by hazardous substances and chemicals.
   
• Fire Risk Assessment Kit - This kit is great for assessing fire safety on your premises.
   
• Manual Handling Risk Assessment Kit - Manual handling can be dangerous! Prevent accidents and injuries with this risk assessment kit.
   
• Display Screen Equipment Risk Assessment Kit - This kit will help you to ensure the safe, healthy use of computer equipment at work.

Click here to see our full collection of risk assessment kits.

Many people have been seriously injured - or worse - while performing routine maintenance on machinery that should have been perfectly safe. Isolating your machines using the correct lockout procedures minimises the risk of unexpected start-ups while maintenance work is in progress, protecting the lives and wellbeing of those doing the work.

Here at Label Source, we sell a range of maintenance tags to help you identify machinery and equipment that, for safety purposes, should not be used. With clear instructions like 'Do not use' and 'Do not start - men working on machine', our maintenance tags are ideal for locking out heavy machinery during services and repairs (although we also stock labels that warn of high voltages, poisons, harmful gases, and other hazards).

In case you're not convinced of how important maintenance tags can be, here's just one example of what can happen when machines aren't properly 'tagged out' while maintenance work takes place. In November 2005, two men in Lanarkshire, Scotland were cleaning the inside of an animal feed mixer when the machine started up unexpectedly and killed them both. The HSE investigated this incident and found that it could have been "easily prevented" if the machine had been properly isolated:

"The process of isolation means establishing a break in the power supply, normally by using a lockable switch, and then securing the switch in the 'off' position using a padlock to prevent it being switched back on until the work is finished." - John Madden, HSE Inspector, speaking in 2008

Once you have completed the lockout process described above, it's important to use a maintenance tag to label the locked machinery and inform other workers that the machine is not to be used (most maintenance tags leave space to explain why the machine is locked out).

The incident you just read about resulted - full story here - in a total fine of £63,750 for the two companies involved, but far more importantly, it led to two deaths that could easily have been prevented. Click here to browse our maintenance tag range, and don't let the same thing happen on your watch!

We often talk about health and safety horror stories on this blog, and the health and safety horror story of the past year has without a doubt been the fallout from the rollercoaster crash at Alton Towers last summer.

In case you've somehow missed the media's coverage of this horrible accident, here's a brief recap: on the 2nd of June, 2015, a carriage carrying 16 people crashed into another (empty) carriage on a rollercoaster called The Smiler at the Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire. Five people were seriously injured, and two of them - Vicky Balch and Leah Washington - ended up losing a leg each. Merlin Entertainments, the company that owns and operates the Alton Towers park, was investigated and taken to court over the incident, and last week a judge at Stafford crown court ordered them to pay a fine of £5 million.

There really are no winners here: Alton Towers have lost a lot of business in addition to the huge fine, and two young women were forced to undergo life-changing amputations that no amount of compensation will undo. However, a slender silver lining may be found in the possibility that this horrific incident and the ensuing media attention and court ruling may serve as a stern warning to other businesses (as well as to Merlin Entertainments themselves going forward). Paul Paxton, the lawyer who represented Balch and Washington in court, put it well in a statement outside the court after the judge's verdict had been delivered:

"My clients...have been shocked and disappointed by [Merlin's] catalogue of errors.The list goes on and on: the catastrophic failure to assess risk, the inadequate training, inadequate supervision, inadequate management, failure to communicate, failure to put in place safe systems of work. But this has not been about retribution; this has been about finding out why this accident happened and making sure that lessons have been learned, not just by Merlin but by others throughout the industry."

With that in mind, here's what businesses of all sizes in all sectors can learn from this case:

1. The Value of Risk Assessments

The judge at Stafford crown court ruled that Merlin's aforementioned "catastrophic failure to assess risk" was largely to blame for the Smiler incident. Risk assessments are important in every line of work; whether your workers are maintaining rollercoasters or moving boxes, you as a business owner are legally required to carry out a thorough risk assessment in order to identify any and all health and safety hazards that may exist in the working environment you're providing.

2. Putting in Place Safe Systems of Work

Spotting potential risks is just the first step towards total safety. After you've completed your risk assessment, you need to compose and implement a safe system of work that's designed to prevent accidents and injuries from occurring.

3. The Importance of Safety Training

Once you've identified possible risks and put a system in place to neutralise them, it's crucial that you train your staff to work within that system. It's all well and good coming up with a plan to minimise safety risks, but it won't help anyone unless the people on the ground are trained to put it into action!

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