Safety and Health at Work

NAPO site and films

2009-01-24T18:22:00.003+00:00

Napo has new films and new site. Napo is an original idea conceived by a small group of OSH communications professionals in response to the need for high quality information products to break down national boundaries and address the diverse cultures, languages and practical needs of people at work.

The Group put together a proposal, a specification and an Invitation to Tender to produce a video about safety signs, and identified two production companies from their own country who were invited to put forward a treatment. Via Storia, a French company from Strasbourg, won the contract. Napo was born!

Now, NAPO has new films and his own Website.

2008-12-23T12:07:00.001+00:00

EU-OSHA launches the Risk Assessment Campaign

2008-06-16T10:53:00.004+01:00

The EU-OSHA launched the European Campaign on Risk Assessment on Friday 6th of June. The purpose of the "Healthy Workplaces" campaign is the promotion of a management approach that considers the different stpes of risk assessment.

There is a great deal of resources available to help promoting the campaign and implementing the risk assessments, (e.g.: Risk - Assessment Office Checklist).

12th May, International Nurses Day

2008-05-05T14:09:00.003+01:00

International Nurses Day will be celebrated on 12 May (Florence Nightingale's birthday) around the world.

This year, the theme is "Delivering Quality, Serving Communities: Nurses Leading Primary Health Care"

Important week for Safety and Health at Work

2008-04-28T09:33:00.004+01:00

This week is very important for Safety and Health at Work around the World. Today, 28th of April, is the “World Day for Safety and Health at Work”, this year with the theme "Managing Risk in the Work Environment". On this day, many events and conferences will take place around the world, and Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) will be under the spotlight, at least for one day.

On Thursday, we will celebrate 1st of May, an occasion to look back and see the many advances achieved in OSH in different countries.

However, recent tragedies like the one in Casablanca last week, with at least 55 workers dead, reminds us that there is still a lot to do to spread OSH around the world.

Information and resources on HORECA

2008-01-31T07:17:00.000+00:00

foto credit: Vebate

The EU-OSHA has published a Web section on HORECA (HOtels, REstaurants and CAtering), a growing sector with have a negative impact on occupational safety and health (OSH), due to factors like heavy workload, long working hours, and many other, wich makes it a sector with many work related diseases.

In addition to this, EU-OSHA has published different publications related to the HORECA sector, wich address the handling of dangerous substances, prevention of MSDs and other common sectorial risks.

Best whishes for 2008.

2007-12-31T12:06:00.001+00:00

The year is over and it is time to think of these first months of "WorkingSafe".

Starting a project from scratch is not an easy task and it takes time and energy. We are very happy with how we have managed to build a nice community and increase our statistics month after month.

For the coming year, we have a great deal of new projects and enthusiasm enough to put them in place, hoping they will serve our main objective:

Disseminate information and rise awareness so everyone can Work Safe.

Best whishes for 2008.

Picture credit

ICT and healthcare, a close relation.

2007-12-12T06:38:00.000+00:00

Euractiv.com has published an article on ICT and the benifits it brings to cronic diseases in the present ageing environment.

EU-OSHA is running an Online Survey

2007-11-21T10:43:00.000+00:00

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is running an online Survey to measure the services offered and collect feedback from users.

A similar campaign was made in 2006 and it led to important technical improvements and reorganisation of the content.

By filling the questionnaire you will spend less than 5 minutes and contribute to help EU-OSHA provide a better service.

Statistics on Safety and Health at Work

2007-10-23T14:34:00.000+01:00

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has recently published a new "Single entry point" on Safety and Health at Work Statistics.

After some global figures there is more information on particular sectors and also links to other resources on this topic.

A good place to start looking for figures.

Fighting Safety and Health myths

2007-10-10T16:05:00.000+01:00

The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) publishes a monthly section called "myth of the month", where myths are fought against.

Safety and health is an area in which many myths are really "popular", and it is a great idea to provide information and explanations that can help people find what is real. That's why we support this initiative and contribute to disseminate this information.

A+A 2007: A great event on Safety and Health at Work.

2007-09-25T11:43:00.000+01:00

The A+A is probably the most important conference on the Safety and Health sector and takes places in Düsseldorf every other year. Due to its tradition (first conference took place in 1954), ability to gether many atendees and communication to decision-takers, the A+A is seen for many as an indicator for Safety and Health tends on pan-European market.

Taking this into account, we are satisfied to certified the success of this edition (18th to 21st of September), that had over 55,000 visitors and 1,400 exhibitors form as many as 51 countries.

If you missed the event it is easy (and worth) having a look at the summaries the organisation prepaired on the following links:

Opening day

Second day

Third Day

The next edition of this condeference will take place from 3rd to 6th of November 2009.

REACH is 3 months old ... are you aware?

2007-09-14T12:02:00.000+01:00

Three months after REACH entered into force, there has been a lot of questions and queries about it.

You can have information on it on the ECHA site.

If you are interested on knowing more about REACH, wether you are user, manufactores or importer, the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) has put together some resources that are very clarifying.

Aging workforce (Case Studies from Eurofound)

2007-09-07T15:02:00.000+01:00

The aging of population in Europe is causing an aging workforce in many EU organizations. Far from being something temporary, the trend is settled and will probably stay in the near future.

Many companies have taken measures that allow them retain talent and benefit from experienced staff.

Eurofound released a series of case studies that can give ideas of how to better integrate and capitalise of aging workers inside the organisation.

There are 11 reports covering a series of EU countries(i.e. Austria, Germany), Italy, Spain and UK, all in English.

Hope some of the measure can be spread and reproduce in other organisations.

A+A trade fair. A great event is coming

2007-09-03T11:22:00.000+01:00

From the 18th to the 21st of September the A+A Trade Fair will take place.

This event is a must for all Occupational Safety and Health professionals and a great opportunity for everyone interestedd in this matter.

We will attend and report on it.

Find more information on A+A

Fixed-term contracts increase in EU

2007-08-28T08:47:00.000+01:00

Fixed-term contracts are not the best to ensure safe work. In the EU almost 1 out of 6 employees are fixed-term employees, almost half of them involuntarily.

By country, Spain gets the highs rate with more than 30% fixed-term contracts, while other countries like Estonia, Ireland or UK have a very low percentage. Agriculture is the sector with higher fixed-term contracts.

A negative aspect is that both total fixed-term contracts (women:14.1% in 2000 to 14.9% in 2005, men:12.5% in 2000 to 13.9% in 2005) and Involuntary fixed-term contracts (women:6.6% in 2000 to 7.5% in 2005, men:5.7% in 2000 to 6.7% in 2005) have increased during the last 5 years.

Find full report

EU-OSHA undertakes interesting changes

2007-08-15T12:16:00.000+01:00

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has undertaken an slight "face lift", in order to make its homepage more usable and nice looking.

But we find even more interesting a new service launched, called "alerts", that allows users to receive an email notification each time there is new content on their area of interest. The list of topics of interest is really extensive, and covers most of the topics any OSH specialist could be interested on.

As users, we welcome these improvements that will enhance the user's experience by making content easily available.

Foot and mouth desease outbreak being tackled

2007-08-09T17:14:00.000+01:00

The foot and mouth outbreak detected in UK is been tackled in a very efficient way, having learnt the lesson in 2001, when this was not the case.

More information on the outbreak from HSE

Hold me tight! Another NAPO film

2007-08-09T03:13:00.001+01:00

This video shows the right way to handle weights.

NAPO films are very successful, both in training sessions and awareness raising events.

NAPO gets the message accross.

Good moment to review the conditions of summer season working conditions

2007-08-03T13:14:00.000+01:00

During the summer season some service activities get increased, especially those related to tourism.

It might be a good opportunity to go through these checklists.

Restaurants

Discotheques and night clubs

These and other checklist are available in the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA).

Smoking ban in UK. One month later

2007-07-31T12:47:00.000+01:00

It has been one month since the smoking ban entered into force in the UK. This law, already implemented in other countries has been adopted in different levels, altough always proved to be benefitial for worker's and general public's health.

After this short period, it would be nice to have first opinions and comments from those under this law (employees, employers and general public in the UK), or from others that saw how this law was implemented on their country.

Any opinion is welcome.

Be safe on your bike

2007-07-20T14:24:00.000+01:00

Usage of motorbike increase drastically in summer, and in many cases the stationallity of this activity makes it even more dangerous.

The RoSPA in the UK has issue an interesting report that helps increase safety and assess risks.

First wave of HWI seminars over

2007-07-18T08:52:00.000+01:00

From 19th April in Warsaw to 29th of June in Constanta, 9 HWI (Healthy Workplace Initiative) seminars were held in 6 new EU member states.

The seminars gathered over 1,000 atendees and were a great opportunity to share knowledge and experiences aimed at creating a "Healthy Workplace".

A second wave of seminars, with around 20 new events, will be organised from September to November in major cities in new EU member states (Siauliai, Alytus and Kedainiai in Lithuania already confirmed, and Sofia and Tallin very advanced).

Keep informed on dates and content of the seminars visiting the Healthy Workplace Initiative (HWI).

Pictures from seminars held in 2006 are available here.

More posts on HWI

Information for the aftermath of hurricanes and storms

2007-07-07T01:18:00.000+01:00

In preparation for sumer and fall hurricanes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a series of resources aimed at ensuring safety of those working in the aftermath.

The types of materials are:

QuickCards

Fact Sheets

Safety and Health Information Bulletins (SHIBs)

More information available here

Summer jobs: start a Future, don't end a life.

2007-07-04T15:06:00.000+01:00

Young workers are a group with higher risks than average. This situation gets even worse during summer, when many young workers get their first working experience. Very frequently either for lack of knowledge or due to the will to cause a good impression in the company young workers put themselves under risk situations.

Canada's National Occupational Health and Safety Resource (ccohs) enfasizes the importance of the working conditions of the youngest and newest in the staff, and offers many resources and personalised answers on the subject.

Information from CCOHS