Safety and Information Signs

Use of Safety Signs 

• The purpose of safety signs
• A range of common safety signs: prohibition, warning, mandatory and safecondition signs in general workplace use

Safety and Information Signs 

Signs combine shape, colour and a pictogram (symbol) to provide specific health and safety information. Being pictographic they are universal, and do not rely on language or the ability to read.

Safety Condition signs are square or rectangular in shape, and have a green background with white pictograms and lettering. Examples of such signs are exit routes and first aid. They mean the safe way to do something.

Warning signs are triangular in shape, with a yellow background, and black pictogram and lettering. They mean danger - proceed with caution

Mandatory signs are circular in shape, with a blue background and white pictogram. They mean "must do". Examples are wear hearing defenders in an ear protection zone.

Prohibited signs are round in shape, with a white background and a red perimeter band and diagonal stripe. The pictogram is black in colour. Examples are No smoking.

Fire equipment signs these are square or rectangular in shape, with a red background and white pictogram. This sign denotes the location of fire fighting equipment.

Illuminated signs and acoustic signals such as alarms, and also verbal and hand signals are also covered in the regulations. We will now look at each of these areas briefly:

Dangerous locations/traffic routes: In places where there is a risk of people or equipment colliding with obstacles, or where objects may fall (i.e. storage facilities), these should be marked with yellow and black, or red and white striped tape or boards.

Traffic routes for internal transport must be clearly identified by continuous coloured lines, preferably, yellow or white.

Illuminated signs: Where such signs are required e.g. on emergency escape routes in the event of an electrical failure, and then these must have a battery back-up.

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Controlling Health & Safety Risks

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PREVENTION

In order to control the risks identified by risk assessments, the employer and the self-employed need to introduce a risk control strategy of prevention. This is based on the following principles;

1. Avoid the hazard/risk altogether - e.g. do not work at height, clean the windows from the ground level, so avoiding the risk of falling.

2. Evaluating unavoidable risks - carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment and evaluate the risks. This will allow for prioritisation.

3. Control the hazard at source - e.g. if steps are slippery, replace or treat them rather than just putting up a warning sign. Repair a hole in the floor rather than demarcating the area.

4. Adapt work to the individual - consider ergonomics by improving design, organisation and working and production methods. Also when choosing work equipment or designing work areas. Eliminate monotonous work, where possible, by job redesign or worker rotation.

5. Adapt to technical progress - keep up to date and informed on new developments in ways of working that reduce or eliminate hazard/risk. Replace old noisy equipment with modern much quieter equipment.

6. Replacing the dangerous by the less dangerous - for example substituting mains powered electrical hand tools with battery powered hand tools or substituting a solvent based chemical for a water based alternative.

7. Developing a coherent policy - Developing a coherent overall prevention policy, which covers production, organisation, working conditions and social dialogue.

8. Give priority to collective protective measures - isolate workers from the hazard/risk by enclosing the process rather than giving out protective equipment. Protect from falls by the use of nets rather than a harness and line.

9. Providing appropriate information, instruction and training - workers need to understand what they need to do to protect themselves.

10. Issue Personal Protective equipment only as a last resort - when all other methods of risk reduction fail to reduce the risk sufficiently.

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BS 8800(18001) Approach - H & S Risk Assessment

Classify work activities: prepare a list of work activities covering premises, plant, people and procedures.

Identify Hazards: Identify all significant hazards relating to each work activity. Considering who might be harmed and how

Determine risk: make a subjective estimate of the risk associated with each hazard assuming that planned or existing health and safety precautions are in place. Assessors should also consider the effectiveness of the controls and the consequences of their failure.

Decide is risk is tolerable: judge whether planned or existing OH&S precautions (if any) are sufficient to keep the hazard under control and meet legal requirements.

Prepare a risk control plan (if necessary): prepare a plan to deal with any of the issues found by the assessment to require attention. Organisations should ensure that new and existing controls remain in place and are effective.

Review adequacy of action plan: re-assess risks on the basis of the revised controls and check that risks will be tolerable.

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The Stages of Risk Assessment

RISK ASSESSMENT PROCESS
A number of Guides have been produced to assist organisations in assessing workplace risks in a methodical manner. These include:

• Health & Safety Executive - Five Steps to Risk Assessment 
• IChemE - Practical Risk Assessment 
• BSI (1996) - BS8800: Guide to Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems (Annex Institution of Occupational Safety & Health (1993) - Risk Assessment 

The '5 steps to risk assessment' methodology

• Step 1: Identify the hazards (PEME) 
• Step 2: Decide who might be harmed and how 
• Step 3: Evaluate the risks and decide whether existing control measures are adequate or additional control measures are required SFARP — ERIC PD 
• Step 4: Record the findings the significant findings when you employer 5 or more persons and significant findings. 
• Step 5: review your assessment and revise if necessary. This involves setting a routine, scheduled review. The frequency of review depends upon the level of risk in the operation, and should normally not exceed five years. It may be found useful to carry out a review of risk assessments as part of the safety policy/ manual review since the two activities are closely linked.

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General Control Hierarchy - RISK ASSESSMENT

The general control hierarchy is remembered as ERIC PD;

• Eliminate the hazard - the substance or work practice 
• Reduce (the use or frequency)or Substitute (e.g. a powder to pellets) 
• Isolate - a glove box for handling hazardous biological agents 
• Controls - engineering controls e.g. LEV and safe systems of work e.g. PTW 
• PPE - hard hat, safety boots, gloves etc. 
• Discipline - enforcement of the rules, safety signs, IITS, disciplinary procedures 

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Need to review risk assessments

Risk assessment should be seen as a continuing process. Thus, the adequacy of control measures should be subject to continual, routine review and revised if necessary. Similarly, if conditions change to the extent that hazards and risks are significantly affected than risk assessments should also be reviewed since there is a now reason to believe that it is no longer valid.

Typical circumstances that might require a review of the risk assessment include;

• Changes of premises - internal or external layout

• Changes of personnel affected - numbers, ages, disabilities

• Changes to plant/equipment - power supplies, heating systems Introduction of new work processes - hot work, confined spaces, mechanical handling

• Changes in legislation

• Upon availability of new information - revised guidance documents, new research

• As a result of incident reports

• As a result of occupational health assessment or monitoring

• As a result of routine active monitoring - inspections, audits, safety tours

• As a result of enforcement action

• As a result of consultation

• An accident

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A Simple Risk-Based Control plan

RISK LEVEL	ACTION AND TIMESCALE
TRIVIAL	No action is required and no documentary records need to be kept
TOLERABLE	No additional controls are required. Consideration may be given to a more cost-effective solution or improvement that imposes no additional cost burden. Monitoring is required to ensure that the controls are maintained.
MODERATE	Efforts should be made to reduce the risk, but the costs of prevention should be carefully measured and limited. Risk reduction measures should be implemented within a defined time period. Where the moderate risk is associated with extremely harmful consequences, further assessment may be necessary to establish more precisely the likelihood of harm as a basis for determining the need for improved control measures.
SUBSTANTIAL	Work should not be started until the risk has been reduced. Considerable resources may have to be allocated to reduce the risk. Where the risk involves work in progress, urgent action should be taken.
INTOLERABLE	Work should not be started or continued until the risk has been reduced. If it is not possible to reduce risk even with unlimited resources, work has to remain prohibited.

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RISK RATING TABLE - H & S Risk Assessment

A simple risk rating table

	Slightly harmful	Harmful	Extremely harmful
Highly unlikely	TRIVIAL RISK	TOLERABLE RISK	MODERATE RISK
Unlikely	TOLERABLE RISK	MODERATE RISK	SUBSTANTIAL RISK
Likely	MODERATE RISK	SUBSTANTIAL RISK	INTOLERABLE RISK

Risk = Severity x Likelihood 

Severity of harm may be rated

Rating	Description
3	Major: Death or major injury or illness causing long term disability
2	Serious: Injuries or illness causing short-term disability
1	Slight: All other injuries or illnesses

Likelihood of harm may be rated

Rating	Description
3	High: Where it is certain that harm will occur
2	Medium: Where harm will often occur
1	Low: Where harm will seldom occur

Risk = Severity of Harm x Likelihood of Occurrence