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S.H.E.A.T. Safety, Health, Environment, Audit & Training.
Health & Safety |
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With Health and Safety now being an important part of everyday life, accidents in the workplace, apart from: -
often
impacts on employees
families, especially if an accident is serious, or fatal. Looking at the recent incident at Buncefield oil storage facility in England, it not only injured employees and damaged the facility, it injured people living and working near to the facility. It damaged houses and work premises, the smoke cloud affected the health of people over a large part of the South of England, and untold damage to the environment. This example may be in the extreme, however, HSE figures show, that as a rough guide, the cost of uninsured losses, can be as high as 10 times the total cost of insurance premiums paid by businesses, these costs may include: - Insured Costs: - Injury costs, ill health, damage; Uninsured Coasts: - Increased insurance premiums, training replacement staff, extra wages, sick pay, production delays, legal costs, loss of contracts, loss of reputation, accident investigation and any excess on a claim.
Buncefield
is only one example of an accident affecting non-employees.
Other examples, like, the Piper Alpha oil rig explosion which killed 167 workers,
is estimated
to have cost over £2
billion, including £746 million in direct insurance payouts. The
fire at BP's Grangemouth refinery (for which BP were fined), cost approximately £100 million in property
damage and business interruption. Compensation payouts, for workplace injuries/ill health, are commonplace, the TUC estimates, payouts to Union members in 1995 alone, totalled £304 million. Since then, Unions continue fighting for their members, solicitors now take up claims for non-union members. The £304 million quoted, has probably risen to over £500 million a year with payouts increasing steadily. Costs
from prosecutions, can be unlimited, depending
on the court trying the case: -
Transco
were fined £15 million for a gas explosion in Larkhall, Scotland, Balfour
Beatty were fined £10 million for their part in the Hatfield train
accident. These
may seem be extreme, however at the same time Balfour Beatty were
fined, a hotel in Edinburgh was fined £400,000, when a
guest plunged to death trying to escape from a lift stuck between floors. Fines
levied by courts, are additional to court costs and costs of preparing the case. These
costs cannot be insured against. One way of insuring against these costs, is having a well-trained workforce and safe workplace.
This can be
achieved in a manner of ways, for example: -
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