Hey Tom,

The health and safety executive has some information here. Not sure how relevent it is. Shouldn't your boss help??!

Do you need an official training course to meet the requirements of the job? Or can you just "get on with it"?

I was put in charge of Health and Safety when I started my old job - well, I was the most junior member of staff. There wasn't any training as such. Just a photocopied checklist I had to tick through, stuff like "First Aid box fully equipped" (ok you can ignore that one), "PPE appropriately stored", "fire exits clear of obstructions", "no trailing wires" and so on. Then I had to sign to say I'd checked the smoke alarm, the assistance alarms and the lift and they were in good working order, and add the sheet to the file.

Alternatively, you can ask for money for a whole bunch of these.

Yes NEBOSH General certificate about a two week course. Its not to bad.
Dylan

Congratulations!

I reckon there'll be plenty to blog about H & S - mindless bureaucracy for a start.

I've avoided being the rep (so far) and also avoided being a fire marshall...

But I couldn't avoid the first aid.

As just said, the HSE website has lots of downloadable info, usually in pdf format. There should be stuff on roles and responsibilities of union safety reps. Try for the LAC page (Local Authority Circulars) it provides guidance to environmental health people about enforcing at local level.
There are a number of 'working safely' type courses but the 'IOSH managing safely' course is 4 days and a good starter. The unions should have a list of them. Failing that the IOSH or RoSPA websites. Otherwise post a Q and I should get back in 24hrs.

I imagine your union will run courses for new health and safety stewards. Ask them. If they don't, they certainly ought to.

Here is the thing.

I don't belong to a union. I have views on Unison and general ambulance unions that are... um... unfavourable.

More on that later.

Ah, well I can understand that view, but unions can sometimes be useful! When I was a H&S rep I went on a 1-day x 10 weeks Stage 1 course put on by the regional TUC, since my employers wouldn't arrange any training of their own. That was quite interesting since I worked in a bog-standard railway office environment and other people on the course included a hospital radiographer and a H&S rep in an oil refinery, which ensured a wide range of points of view of what H&S involved!

You're entitled to "reasonable time off" to attend training courses, a notice board in your workplace, and adequate communications and storage facilities for your documentation, which might be interpreted as an office with a phone, but in my case was half a lockable filing cabinet.

You should probably pay a visit to your nearest branch of HMSO or whatever they're called these days, and take a look at what they stock in the H&S area - one particularly useful brown book, about 3" high and 7" wide describes the rights and responsibilities of H&S reps, but I'm damned if I can remember what it's called (it was about 10 years ago now...).

Get a big sign that reads
"The most important person in ensuring your safety"

And stick it above the mirror

We have those already, Well to be fair they're not BIG signs, just stickers, and the pillock sticking them to the mirror in the ladies quite obviously didn't spare a thought for us girls at 0630, either post night shift or pre day shift, who need to be able to see ourselves in the bloody mirror to sort out such things as.....brushing our hair, applying mascara and/or lipstick ooh and not forgetting the contact lens wearers amongst us who now have to bloody well cavort and contort ourselves into some rediculous positions because the sticker is in the bloody way!!!!!! (and no, we ladies don't do all these things to please the males amongst us, we do it so we don't scare the living bejeezus out of any poor unsuspecting patients!!!!)
snowdrop ;0)

even with the not-amazingly-big signs, it's still possible to pretty much cover a whole wall in a toilet with notices covering everything from "please wash your hands" to "do not operate switches with wet hands" and "water from the hot tap may be hot". Honestly, it's amazing most of us were ever potty-trained, given the hazards.

Hee-Hee.... I particularly enjoy the "Tripping Hazard" signs we seem to have acquired.... people are so busy reading the signs that they generally trip over what ever it was the sign was warning them about in the first place!! Not to mention the signs in the vehicles which state "Violence and abuse against trust staff will not be tolerated" You naughty ickle girls and boys, now sit down, be quiet and behave youselves...... Of course the first thing these people do on entering an ambulance is read all the notices, take heed of them and are all perfectly well behaved.... NOT!!!!!! ;0)

It's definitely possible to have sign-overload. Trouble is when there are a hundred "stating the obvious" signs up so you don't spot the one that says something non-obvious that you need to know!

Disabled lifts in particular are a bugger for that - signs and stickers everywhere telling you that a maximum of two people can be on the lift, with a combined weight of X, and hold on to the rail, etc etc etc... all I want is the one that tells me which particular button to press to release the safety gate.

You're all UNISON aren't you? I'm sure I remember some London ambulance service people coming to our branch during a dispute three or four years ago. Anyway - UNISON do what I am told are very good H&S courses for branch reps. And obviously as well as the H&S law you will also get the "how we can help you as your union" line too. And they cost less than commercial/NGO ones.

I'd rather steer clear of Unison, I'm not a big fan of them to be honest.

"Here, Here" Mr. Reynolds, I second that comment
me not a big fan either!!!
Hugs
snowdrop
;0)

Hi there

The company that did my first aid trainer certificate also do H&S. You could have a look at www.nuco-training.co.uk they offer an advanced certificate in H&S which you can combine with a teaching certificate and actually teach it. It's big business these days. I'm sure that they'd do a deal to let you teach first aid as well if you wanted, most first aid trainers have limited experience so practical experience on the road really helps.

New kind of stupid, first call of the night yesterday, ended up as a call to a man trapped in his bathroom!!! 2 Responders in an RRV and a frontline crew to back us up. Care in the community is great!!

Don't know if you voluntered for that or just got totally shafted but the best direction i could point you in is that of a large abyss that actually doesn't have a bottom. Just view everything from a dry wipe marker to a bottle of tippex as a risk and you wont go wrong.
If your place is anything like ours you could start with the fridge, microwave and those dodgy looking stains on the carpet.

I don't know of any courses, certainly not ones that'll be relevant to your job, but it may help you to learn how to spot the difference between the two different sorts of health and safety officer.

There are some health and safety officers who will make a rule, merely because it gives them a warm, tingly feeling, and makes them feel all important.

And then there are the ones who will actually look at things realistically, and make sensible rules that people can work with.

In my experience, the second group are actually more plentiful than the first group (although they're also quieter, so you may not notice them), and the second group also hate the first group for giving their profession a reputation for being filled with jobsworths.

To be honest, you may as well try your hardest to annoy the first group, because they'll never end up on your side. A H&S bod in the second group is a valuable asset, though. Keep them sweet.

Hey Tom, I'm a hsr for my company but as I'm in Australia the rules are probably different.

I do have a folder of info from my second year training course that might have some links of interest (we're encouraged to use overseas resources as well as Australian and I'm pretty sure there were some links for UK sources). I'll dig the folder out and see what I can find.

The thing I'd start with is to ask your employer about training courses. In Australia we're entitled to 5 days each year (we have 3 years in the job at a time), paid for by the employer.

Hi there, loads of training companies do a course for safety reps, try asking Unison, they do run their own rep courses quite regularly. Also don't forget that as a safety rep you are entitled to reasonable time off (with pay and including any bonuses you normally receive) to conduct your rep duties and you're entitled to the necessary equipment and training to carry them out too.

It all depends on how much depth you want to go into. www.iosh.co.uk (Institution of Occupational Safety and Health )is the main training body and are recognised nationwide and are a national standard too. Its best to get you role as a rep clearly defined, especially about what they want you to do and what you actually need to do. It can be very easy to cross over into an H&S Officer role and the paperwork is an absolute nightmare (trust me, I'm still buried underneath it all!!).

As above, IOSH is a good place to start looking.
The IOSH Managing Safely course is a good start, but as a HSR, you will probably need a bit more depth - the NEBOSH General Certificate is (IMHO) probably the way to go. About 20 study days, a bunch of homework, and 3 exams at the end.

Well Im a H+S Rep. for my Devision with SJA...just means I get more paper work than before and also theres the checking through each bag of clinicla waste we get through and the extra courses. For instance Im meant to be on a Fire Marshall Course tomorow, only a half day thou tomorow. Yey....If I was you I wouldnt do it, I would run a mile in that direction (points to cliff by see)...Or go with SJA are H+S seems have some idea of what the heck is going on....

You don't have to be a member of a union to go on a union health and safety course. They would want you to be adequately equipped to look after the saftey issues that arise for all. Not just unison members.#

I think a first aid training course might be in order. ;)

When I became a rep, my boss made me do a load of courses (work for an SME and have to do everything). For a full list of courses, a lot of which you can get grants for are listed on learn direct.

When I got H&S training a few years ago it was from Midlands Safety. That was in Hmpshire, so they do cover all of the country. They seemed pretty good, so it might be worth contacting them to see if they have anything of interest.

Regards
Andrew