Book Course HSL is to run a 1/2 day course on Stair Assessment. 14 September 2016 Stairs present significant potential for harm to their users. A fall on stairs often leads to serious injury or even death. In the UK there is a fall on stairs every 90 seconds (BS 5395-1:2010). The HSL Falls Prevention Team investigates several fatal stair accidents each year, often in seemingly innocuous environments like retail premises and restaurants. There are approximately 100,000 accidents on stairs in leisure environments each year, and several thousand more in the workplace. Negotiating stairs is a largely subconscious task and, as such, falls are often blamed entirely on human error. In reality, the design of a stair plays a critical role in helping a pedestrian make their subconscious judgments accurately and therefore safely negotiate the stair. HSL forensic investigations into the causes of fatal stair accidents have found that poor stair design is a significant factor in many cases. Fatalities are often predated by a history of less serious falls which have not prompted careful scrutiny. Good stair design reduces the risk of falls. Simple, cost-effective improvements to existing stairs can significantly reduce the risk of a serious fall. There is a clear need to understand the risks posed by specific stairs by way of assessment. This course will help you understand the design features of stairs which can give rise to a risk of falling, and identify simple remedial improvements to reduce the likelihood of a fall. By the end of the course, you will have the knowledge and skills to assess stairs in your own premises, and identify examples of good and bad practice. This will allow appropriate changes to working practices and the work environment to be considered and planned in proportion with the risks and costs involved. How to undertake a stair fall assessment Common design issues that give rise to a risk of falls on stairs Examples of HSL stair investigations and the findings Simple tools for assessing common stair features (stair assessment tools will be provided to take away as part of the training) An opportunity for you to assess stairs yourself and discuss with the expert Anyone who is interested in understanding falls on stairs or who has responsibility for managing health and safety. We can run bespoke courses at your premises tailored to your specific requirements. This includes a free expert assessment of your stairs. The course will be run at the HSL laboratory in the spa town of Buxton. Buxton is in the heart of the Peak District and has good links to mainline train stations and Manchester International Airport. Details of hotels in the Buxton area can be found at www.visitbuxton.co.uk Cost The full cost of the course is £395 per person (includes course notes, lunch and refreshments and assessment tool developed by HSL). Book Course     Please note the invoice option is not available within 4 weeks of the course date, or for overseas customers.  If you are selecting the invoice option for payment, it will be mandatory to input a purchase order/reference number as we are unable to process booking forms without this. For further dates and additional information email: training@hsl.gsi.gov.uk or contact the Training & Conferences Unitat HSL directly on +44 (0)1298 218806. Back to Health & Safety Training Courses Source link

Power resistor manufacturer Cressall has achieved the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001 certification. The company’s new accreditation is a testament to its dedication to safe and reliable practices. In recognition, Cressall was issued a certificate of approval on 22 February 2016.  Source link

When Hinkley Point was first talked about in the mid-2000s, Tony Blair was prime minister, the UK’s position in the EU looked secure and the project was being run by British Energy. On Thursday night board members at EDF, the French utility now running the project, decided to give the scheme the final go-ahead, but they did so against a completely different political backdrop. The UK is on its third prime minister since Mr Blair, it is on its way out of the EU and British Energy is no longer. Nothing more clearly illustrates the change in political background than the decision by UK ministers, immediately after news of the French approval, to delay the project once more, with officials saying Theresa May wants to examine the case in full, having become prime minister this month. It is not only the political background that has changed since Mr Blair’s government first started talking of the UK’s “nuclear renaissance”. The project itself has become far more protracted and expensive than it was ever supposed to be. The problems started early on in the life of the scheme. EDF bought out British Energy for £12.4bn in 2009 and, with it, acquired the company’s eight new nuclear sites. Even then, however, it appeared the timetable was slipping. Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF in the UK, had said he expected Britons to be cooking their Christmas turkeys using power from the first new nuclear plant by 2017. But by late 2008 the company was talking about 2018, while British ministers were saying it would be finished “well before the 2020s”. The main reason for the slipping timetable was that a nuclear power plant of the same design was being built in Olkiluoto in Finland, and that project was proving harder and costlier to build than anyone had expected. The design, known as the European Pressurised Reactor, was supposed to be the safest in the world, built to withstand even a terrorist flying a commercial aeroplane into it. But it was these complex and expensive safety measures, experts say, that have seen the EPR delayed almost everywhere it is being built. In 2013, EDF suffered a significant setback to its plans when Centrica, a co-investor in the project, pulled out. Iain Conn, Centrica’s current chief executive, sounded a sceptical note on the scheme on Thursday, just hours before the EDF board meeting. “It is an expensive way to get electricity,” he said. Centrica was replaced by CGN, a Chinese state-backed nuclear power group. £92.50 Payment ministers agreed for every megawatt-hour of electricity produced at Hinkley. The current wholesale price is £40 At around the same time, EDF executives commissioned a report from auditors in the company about the likelihood that Hinkley Point could be built on time and on budget. That document, which was called the “Cardiff report” and which the Financial Times has seen, warned that there was only a 50 per cent chance that it could be produced for its £16bn price tag. The report, which one board member said they had not been shown, recommended a budget of £18bn — a figure that was accepted by the company only in 2015. Despite all these problems, one thing that remained secure about Hinkley Point — until last night — was political support for the scheme on both sides of the Channel. In the UK, where ageing coal power stations are closing faster than the government expected, ministers showed their support in 2013 by agreeing to pay £92.50 for every megawatt-hour of electricity Hinkley Point produces. The current wholesale price is around £40. London’s decision last night to hold yet another review of the project shows how much has changed since the UK voted to leave the EU and David Cameron, one of the scheme’s biggest backers, resigned as prime minister. Officials said Mrs May’s cautious approach lies behind the delay but the company will now worry that the political consensus could soon break. We aren’t supposed to be spokespeople for a union or the state. I’m really ill at ease with this project Paris, however, remains fully committed, with ministers seeing Hinkley Point as crucial to maintaining the competencies of the French nuclear sector and supporting its suppliers. Until the last-minute UK intervention, that political support had driven the project to the finishing line in the face of a host of delays and potential obstructions. Those delays included opposition from within the board, which was more divided than had been expected. Before Thursday’s meeting, the project had led to the resignations of two senior people within EDF. The first was Thomas Piquemal as chief financial officer, the second, Gérard Magnin, a state representative on the board. And even after those resignations, opposition remained. As the board prepared to meeting on Thursday afternoon, one director told the Financial Times: “We aren’t supposed to be spokespeople for a union or the state. I’m really ill at ease with this project.” The announcement by Greg Clark, the business and energy secretary, late last night, to delay the project once more, suggests that person is not alone. Source link

For the first time in five years the housing market in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest urban area, is showing signs that prices are stabilising, and may even be slowing. The average price in July was $867,681, a fall of 4.5% from the previous month and 2% below the average price for the previous three months, according to the latest data from Barfoot & Thompson. The trend is not as evident in the median price, which at $840,000 was the same as in June, and 2.1% higher than the median price for the previous three months. ‘There has been a definite change in the market in the last month. The winter months, school holidays and a slowing in the number of new listings all contributed to the slowdown in July, but buyer determination to pay whatever is necessary to achieve a property was tempered,’ said Wendy Alexander, chief executive officer of Barfoot & Thompson. ‘Buyers remain prepared to pay a fair price, and under the hammer sales at auctions of 70% were still high, but sales activity is slower than it was at the same time last year. In the three months May to July this year we sold 3,508 properties. In the same period last year we sold 3780, a 7.8% difference,’ she explained. She pointed out that the year on year increase in prices is still occurring, but at a much slower rate than in the past four years. The average price has increased by 5.3% over the past seven months compared to 2015’s full year average price increase of 14%. Meanwhile, the median price increase over the past seven months has been 6% compared to 17.4% for 2015. ‘Whether price increases will continue in the remaining months of the year is unclear. Normally, prices rise as we enter the spring/summer months, but the Reserve Bank’s new regulations affecting investors will start to have an impact from August,’ said Alexander. The data also shows that in July Barfoot & Thompson sold 1,034 properties, down 11.5% on the number in June and down 25.5% on those for the same month last year. New listings at 1,426 were down 19.4% on those in June and down 19.6% for those in July last year. At end of the month the firm had 3,012 properties on its books, some 2.6% higher than in June and 7.5% higher than in July last year. During July the firm sold 383 properties, or 37% of all sales, for more than $1 million and sold 94 properties, or 9.1% of sales, for under $500,000. Source link