How Much Maintenance is Enough for Health and Safety?
A high percentage of accidents in the workplace are as a result of maintenance which is not preformed correctly or even not undertaken at all. Maintaining tools and equipment is essential to keep it in a condition which not only allows the task to be completed properly and efficiently, but also will not pose an additional danger to the health and safety of the operator or those nearby, over and above the risks that it poses normally when it is in good condition, e.g. sharp blades.
The risks associated with poor or inadequate maintenance include a danger from flying parts which come loose and strike a person, electrocution from defective wiring, lacerations from loose or missing safety guards, explosions from hot parts coming into contact with fuel or from a build-up of gas which is not properly vented, and many more. The abundance of potential hazards to health mean that good maintenance is essential for keeping people safe, not to mention being a legal requirement to ensure the health and safety of workers/operators.
How much maintenance is enough when it comes to health and safety will depend largely upon the individual tool or equipment. For example a complicated electrical machine which has numerous moving parts and a highly combustible source of fuel is likely to require much more stringent and frequent maintenance than a simple set of hand-operated shears. The normal operating environment and conditions which the equipment is exposed to will affect the amount of maintenance required too, as conditions such as salt water or extreme temperatures can speed up the deterioration of parts and equipment.
Need an Accredited Course?
Along with designing bespoke health and safety training programmes, we also run the accredited NEBOSH, IOSH and ConstructionSkills (CSkills) health and safety courses as open courses at selected venues across the UK, as well as in-house for those companies who have a number of employees requiring the training, as it will be much more cost effective than sending them all onto a scheduled open course.
For more information please call 0115 984 9940 to discuss the options or send us an online contact form. Alternatively, use the "Courses" menu at the top of the page to view the courses and qualifications for the various awarding bodies.
These courses form the basis for our in-house training programmes. They can either be run as they are if the outline is exactly what you want, or can be be modified to suit the individual requirements of your organisation. Two or more can also be combined to tailor a bespoke training session for you.
Please click on a course title to find out more about what each one entails: