Unit A July 10

Front 1

HSG65 and OHSAS 18001 are both nationally recognised health and safety management system models.
(a) Select ONE of the health and safety management system models mentioned above ANDdraw a labelled diagram showing the main elements of the model and any links between those elements.

Back 1

draw a diagram

Front 2

(b) For your chosen model, identify the system elements into which the following activities would fit:
(i) promotion of employee competence; (1) (ii) setting and revising of health and safety objectives; (1) (iii) carrying out health surveillance; (1) (iv) establishing health and safety responsibilities for individuals.

Back 2

For example, in the HSG 65 model, the promotion of employee competence would fall within the organising element, while in OHSAS it would be included in the implementation and operation section. In the former model, health and safety responsibilities would be dealt with in the organising section while in the latter it would be included in the section dealing with implementation and operation. Many candidates found difficulty in assigning the activities to the correct system elements suggesting a lack of understanding of the models at an appropriate level of detail.

Front 3

(a) Identify the objectives of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). (2)
(b) Outline the methodology of FMEA AND give an example of a typical safety application.

Back 3

FMEA - systematic method - identify and prevent product, system and process problems before they occur. Focus - prevent problems, enhance safety, and increase customer satisfaction.
Identify system components; failure modes of each component; possible causes; identify effects of component failure on the whole system; assess probability of failure; identify existing means of failure detection; assign risk priority codes based on severity and probability; identify actions to reduce risk to a tolerable level; and documentation in tabular format (No, Component function, Failure mode, Failure cause, Failure effect sub/system, Preventive measures (NCfFmFcFePm)

Front 4

Outline how the health and safety professional can help to develop and support the arrangements for consultation with employees on health and safety matters.

Back 4

Plan and developing elements of the H&SM system = risk assessments, safe systems of work & monitoring arrangements; develop and agree plans for improvement = short and long term targets; involvement in reactive monitoring = reporting and investigation of accidents; involvement in active monitoring = carry out inspections and audits; develop and agreeing a safety policy statement; develop and agree plans to improve the safety culture; organise and participate in review arrangements; manage relationships with enforcing bodies; advise senior management on strategic safety issues; develop and agree communication and consultative arrangements for health and safety with the workforce. Many candidates ignored the reference to “strategic involvement” and dealt only with general operational tasks which the appointed person might carry out.

Front 5

Describe, with practical examples, the statutory duties set down in Section 4 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Your answer should contain a description of the duty holders, the duties concerned and those whom the Section is designed to protect.

Back 5

duties set down in Section 4 of the HSAW Act, a section with whose requirements many candidates seemed to be unfamiliar. Those who were aware of the section’s requirements should have found no difficulty in obtaining all or at least most of the marks available. The section imposes duties on persons in control of non-domestic premises which are made available to others, who are not their employees, as a place of work or as a place where plant or substances are provided for their use. The duties include taking reasonable measures to ensure that the premises, the means of access and egress to them and the plant and substances provided for use are safe and without risks to health. The measures that it will be reasonable to expect the duty holder to take will depend both on the degree of control which he/she has, and this may be determined by a contract of tenancy, and on the test of reasonable practicability.

Front 6

(a) Outline the main defences to a civil action for breach of statutory duty. (8)
(b) Where two or more parties act jointly to commit a negligent act they are said to have joint and several liability for such negligence.
Outline the meaning of ‘joint and several liability’ in these circumstances.

Back 6

initial procedural defences that might be offered were that the action was out of time or was not allowed by the relevant statute. If neither were held to be valid, then it might be argued that there was no breach of the duty owed by the defendant under the statute and if there was a breach, it did not cause the injury to which the action referred. It could further be argued that the claimant was not within the class of persons protected by the statute nor was the harm suffered by the claimant of the type that the statute was designed to prevent. Reference to relevant case law such as Corn v Weirs Glass (Hanley) Ltd would have gained an additional mark. The problems in answering this part of the question arose from the difficulties experienced by many candidates in differentiating between negligence and the requirements of a civil action for breach of statutory duty. Some candidates did not read the question carefully and described what would be required to prove a breach rather than the defences that might be put forward to counter the claim.
For part (b), there was little understanding shown of the meaning of ‘joint and several liability’. A good answer would have outlined that all parties involved in committing the negligent act are individually liable for the full amount of damages. Such damages may be recovered in full from any one of the negligent parties following a successful civil action. The party thus sued may then claim a contribution from the others who are jointly liable.

Front 7

An advertising campaign was used to promote improvement in safety standards within an organisation. During the period of the campaign the rate of reported accidents significantly increased and the campaign was considered to be a failure.
(a) Outline the reasons why the rate of reported accidents may have been a poor measure of the campaign’s effectiveness. (2)
(b) Outline FOUR proactive (active) monitoring techniques which might be used to assess the organisation’s health and safety performance.

Back 7

Accidents may have previously been under-reported; raised awareness may have led to previously unreported accidents now being reported, but that, in the absence of other data, it is almost impossible to tell whether or not the increase is ‘real’
Safety inspections - involving physical inspections of the workplace to identify hazards and unsafe conditions; Safety audits - involving the systematic critical examination of all aspects of an organisation’s health and safety performance against stated objectives is carried out; Safety tours -involving unscheduled inspections to observe the workplace in operation without prior warning; Safety sampling- involving a partial amount of a potential group/area is examined to establish facts that can indicate the standard of compliance of the whole;

Front 8

A designer is designing a safety-critical, electrical control system. The system consists of a number of components arranged in series. One of the components is a detector which has a reliability of 0.95. The designer is considering installing two identical detectors in parallel to improve the reliability of the system.
(a) Calculate the improvement in reliability that using two identical detectors in parallel would give when compared with a single detector.

Back 8

The reliability of the parallel components = 1- [(1- 0.95)(1- 0.95)] = 0.998 or 99.8% The improvement in reliability would therefore be 0.998 - 0.95 = 0.048 or 4.8%

Front 9

b) Outline the issues that would need to be considered when assessing whether the proposed extra detector in parallel should be adopted.

Back 9

legal requirements and advice contained in industry and HSE codes of practice and guidance; the initial cost of the additional detector coupled with the subsequent expense connected with its ongoing maintenance and inspection and risk tolerability criteria such as those for example contained in ‘reducing risks protecting people’. Many candidates referred only to the issue of cost.

Front 10

(c) Assuming that the decision is taken to use two detectors in parallel, outline other ways in which the reliability of the control system could be improved.

Back 10

such as the use of design stage failure tracing techniques such as FMEA and HAZOP; introducing purchasing quality control arrangements to ensure the most reliable detectors are used and using two different types of equipment to minimise the risk of common mode failure; ensuring the system components are tested before installation and that they are correctly installed by competent personnel; arranging for the introduction of procedures for the periodic inspection, testing and maintenance of the system including the replacement of components within their useful life; providing training to employees in operating the system and in fault detection and using indicators or warnings to indicate component failure.

Front 11

(d) The designer has been warned that his assumptions of improved reliability from two detectors in parallel might be undermined by common mode failure.
Outline the meaning of ‘common mode failure’ AND outline why it may affect the reliability as calculated in (a) above.

Back 11

a common mode failure might be outlined as a type or cause of failure that could affect more than one component at a time, even when the components are supposed to be arranged to operate independently of each other. The reliability calculations for components in parallel assume independent failure modes and the existence of common mode failures would mean that the actual reliability was less than that calculated.

Front 12

(a) Describe the statutory reporting and recording requirements under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 that apply when someone is either injured at work or by a work activity.

Back 12

The reporting and recording duties under the Regulations fall to the responsible person who is nominally the employer or the person in control of the premises where the accident occurred. When a person at work is killed or suffers a major injury such as an amputation or permanent or temporary loss of sight, a report has to be sent to the enforcing authority/ incident control centre by the quickest practicable means (e.g. telephone) and a written report submitted forthwith on F2508. If a person who has suffered a major injury accident subsequently dies within a year of the date of the accident, the enforcing authority must be informed in writing. If an employee suffers an an accident which is not classed as major but following which he/she is incapable of carrying out their normal work for a period of more than three days, a written report on F2508 must be submitted to the enforcing authority within ten days. In the case of an accident to a non-employee as a result of a work activity, the responsible person must report forthwith both those that cause death or result in major injury or hospitalisation. Alternative reporting arrangements to the above involving electronic or telephone reporting direct to the Incident Contact Centre may also be used. Finally, records of reportable incidents including the name of the injured person, the date and time of the accident and the date the report was submitted to the enforcing authority, must be kept for a period of three years. Answers to this question were particularly disappointing and some candidates again did not read the question with care and wasted time in describing the reporting arrangements for dangerous occurrences and diseases.

Front 13

(b) Good accident investigation requires an analysis of information that has already been gathered so that immediate and underlying causes of the accidents can be identified.
OutlineFIVE methods or techniques that can be used to help in the identification of immediate and underlying causes during such an analysis.

Back 13

identifying the immediate causes for each event leading up to the accident and then for each immediate cause, identifying one or more underlying causes; using a structured ‘why’ questioning analysis, using immediate and underlying cause checklists such as HSG245 (adverse event analysis) or HSG65 (Appendix 5); carrying out an events and causal effects analysis – a graphical method of linking accident events with causal factors and using a team of people with relevant knowledge to identify both the immediate and underlying causes. Candidates could also have referred to other techniques or methods such as the use of fault tree analysis, event tree analysis, or the Ishikawa (fishbone) cause and effect analysis. However, a reference by name only would not have been a sufficient response to obtain the marks available and candidates would need to provide additional information to demonstrate their understanding of the techniques and how they might be used in an accident investigation.

Front 14

(a) Outline the meaning and relevance of the following terms in the context of controlling human error in the workplace:
(i) ‘ergonomics’; (ii) ‘anthropometry’; (iii) ‘task analysis’.

Back 14

an acceptable outline of the meaning and relevance of ergonomics in the context of controlling human error in the workplace would have been – the design of equipment, task and environment to take account of human limitations and capabilities; that of anthropometry – the collection of data on human physical dimensions which can then be applied to equipment design; and that of task analysis – the breaking down of tasks into successively more detailed actions which allows an analysis of the scope for human error with each action.

Front 15

(b) Excluding ergonomic issues, outline ways in which human reliability in the workplace may be improved. In your answer, consider ‘individual’, ‘job’ and ‘organisational’ issues.

Back 15

candidates were asked to outline ways in which human reliability in the workplace might be improved, structuring their answers around individual, job and organisational issues. As far as the individual is concerned, this would involve careful selection taking into account skills, qualifications and aptitude; the provision of appropriate training both at the induction stage and to meet subsequent job specific needs; the consideration of the special needs of those who may be more vulnerable; monitoring personal safety performance; using workplace incentive schemes and assessing job satisfaction and providing health surveillance and a counselling service for those suffering from the effects of stress.
Issues connected with the job include the introduction of task analysis for critical tasks; the design of work patterns and shift organisation to minimise stress and fatigue; the use of job rotation to minimise monotony; the introduction of good communication arrangements between individuals, shifts and groups and using a sufficient number of personnel to avoid constant time pressures. Finally, for issues connected with the organisation, candidates could have referred to the development of a positive health and safety culture the provision of good leadership example and commitment; the introduction of effective health and safety management systems; maximising employee involvement in health and safety issues; ensuring effective arrangements for employee consultation; the introduction of procedures for change management and the provision of an adequate level of supervision. Credit was also available for relevant examples of management system elements or safety culture development relevant to human reliability.

Front 16

(a) In relation to Community Law within the European Union (EU), distinguish between Directives and Regulations.

Back 16

an EC Directive must be implemented by a member state in national legislation by a definite date and the national law must be interpreted to be consistent with the intention of the directive. An EC Regulation on the other hand is binding on those at whom it is directed without the need for implementing legislation

Front 17

(b) The Treaty of Rome contains two different articles (Article 95 and Article 137) under which directives affecting health and safety may be made. Explain the role of these two different articles AND, in EACH case, give an example of a directive affecting health and safety at work that has been made under the relevant article.

Back 17

the intention of Article 95 is to remove barriers to trade, to allow the unrestricted movement and sale of goods and to harmonise product safety standards. The machinery directive could have been cited as a directive made under this article. The purpose of Article 137 on the other hand is to set and harmonise minimum standards of health and safety at work throughout the Community and to encourage improvement in those standards. Relevant examples would have been the Framework Directive or the Work Equipment Directive. There were some good answers provided for this part of the question with many candidates showing an awareness of the key roles of each directive.

Front 18

(c) The EU Pregnant Workers Directive was translated into UK law, in part by introducing specific requirements into the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 in the form of Regulations 16 to 18.
Describe these requirements.

Back 18

the need for an employer to carry out an assessment of the additional risks that might be present for pregnant employees or those who are nursing mothers. This is required whenever women of child bearing capacity are employed and not just when or if they are pregnant and this point was missed by many. If the risks cannot be controlled byordinary statutory control measures, the employer should take other actions such as changing the working conditions or hours of work of the employees affected to avoid risk if this is reasonable. Where this is not reasonable or would not avoid the risk, then the employees concerned should be suspended from work for as long as necessary on full pay.If a medical practitioner or midwife considers it to be necessary, a pregnant woman should be suspended from working at night provided that the employer is provided with a certificate to this effect from the practitioner concerned. However, an employer is not obliged to alter the conditions of work of an employee unless he/she has received written notification that the employee is pregnant or is a nursing mother and this again was a point which was hardly ever mentioned

Front 19

A number of external bodies may influence health and safety standards in an organisation.
Using specific examples of external bodies, explain in EACH case why they influence internal decision making on health and safety matters in an organisation.

Back 19

Examples of external bodies who might influence health and safety standards in an organisation could have included Parliament and the legislation it produces; enforcing authorities and the powers available to them; courts and the legal decisions that they make; clients and customers and their expectations; contractors and/or competitors and the pressures they might exert; trade unions; insurance companies with their ability to increase employer or public liability insurance or even refuse cover; public opinion and pressure groups; technical standards or professional bodies such as CEN, IOSH and ILO; accrediting bodies; and consultants and training providers.
In each case, it was necessary to indicate why the external influence might impact on internal decision making on health and safety matters within an organisation. For example, legislation might exert its influence because of a desire to behave lawfully or from fear of prosecution; trade unions may influence decision making via the appointment and training of safety representatives or by campaigning on specific issues; and accrediting bodies may influence decision making through an organisation’s desire to retain a registration or award to support the image of a business in the eyes of the market or of its employees.