An example of just how many notices the HSE has to issue

The Health and Safety Executive is the national independent watchdog for work-related health, safety and illness. As a regulator they are kept extremely busy, but that's hard to visualize unless you can see the work they are doing. Well, you can.

When the HSE discovers a problem on a site they issue a notice. Recently a two-month notices issued summary was released in document form covering active Leeds, Sheffield, and Newcastle construction teams. Even though it was only for 2 months and a small section of the UK, 47 notices were issued broken down as follows:

• Working at height x 20
• Welfare x 7
• CDM x 7
• PUWER x 2
• Asbestos x 4
• Manual Handling x 2
• Fire x 3
• Electrical Safety x 1
• COSHH x 1

You can read the details of all these notices by downloading the summary document they came from. It just goes to show how important the HSE is, but also how proper training can prevent your workers from ever being served one of these notices and potentially slowing down or even stopping work.