Covered for all eventualities

Injury rates in food and drink companies are nearly double the manufacturing industry average. Yet 80% of accidents are easily preventable through better training and reduced manual handling, says Michelle Knott

It's shocking to find that workers in UK food manufacturing are in more danger of an accident than people in any other manufacturing sector. In fact, the only industry in the UK with a worse injury record is quarrying and mining.

On average, over 2,000 food workers out of every 100,000 were injured in 2003/4, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). This means that the injury rate in food and beverage companies is almost twice the average for manufacturing industries generally and nearly twice that of the construction industry. There is a wide variation between different types of food and drink operators, from over 4,500 injuries per 100,000 poultry slaughterers to just over 500 injuries for noodle and macaroni manufacturers.

But it's not all bad news. Since the HSE launched its 'Recipe for Safety' initiative at the start of the 1990s, overall food industry injury rates have dropped by 26%, with a decrease in fatal injury figures of 60%. Details of the scheme are available on the web site, http://www.hse.gov.uk. Even so, the HSE believes that at least 80% of accidents could be prevented, with management measures potentially offering a 70% reduction and workers contributing a further 10%.

Some food manufacturers are already delivering a safety record that shows how it can be done. Last year the British Safety Council awarded Leyland-based Schwan's Consumer Brands its prestigious Sword of Honour Award. Schwan's employs around 400 workers making pizzas under the Chicago Town brand. It was one of only 40 companies to receive the award in 2004.

"You have to be committed to managing health and safety," says Carl Harrison, safety, health and environment manager at the Leyland plant. "It's a question of demonstrating that it's as important as any other aspect of the business. It can't be standalone -- it has to be integrated with all your other activities. Luckily, we have a senior management team that takes it seriously and we've got a workforce that also works hard to ensure the highest standards."

The company has enjoyed a steady decline in accident rates over the past four years. The direct benefits include a "significant" reduction in insurance premiums and other costs, according to Harrison.

Peter Staddon, head of technical services for the British Insurance Brokers' Association, explains: "If you can demonstrate that you have a good policy, more insurers will be interested in taking you on and the price will come down accordingly. To have the biggest impact, a company has to show that it lives and breathes health and safety, rather than having some dusty policy document lying around."

Insurers can also provide a good source of help and advice on health and safety, especially for larger clients, according to Staddon: "Most insurers prefer to get involved before the fact. Brokers often use external companies to go in and assess the risks."

That's great for major food manufacturers, but Staddon warns that small and medium sized companies can find it harder to attract potential insurers. His advice in that case is to check if their relevant trade association offers health and safety guidelines and instigate a high-profile programme to implement any guidance throughout the company. "Get acknowledgement of what you're doing and make sure the paperwork is in place," he says. "Lots of companies are out there doing a good job but you have to prove that you're one of them."

For some companies, having a good relationship with insurers can make the difference between staying in business or going under in the event of a one-off accident. Staddon cites the case of an electrical installation firm, which had previously had an excellent track record but which became liable to the tune of £900,000 when some tower scaffolding collapsed and injured two workers: "If the company hadn't had a good relationship with its insurance company, the insurer would have dropped it following an incident like this. As it was, they saw it as an anomaly and continued to provide cover."

It takes effort, but improving health and safety will have a direct impact on the bottom line for most companies. "It's very difficult to put a price on accidents," says Harrison. "You have to factor in administration, lost time in terms of people and production, lost business opportunities, damage to equipment, extra training and so on." HSE studies suggest that losses due to accidents can consume up to 37% of profits or 5% of operating costs for some firms.

Health and safety forums are a key mechanism for getting everyone involved at the Schwan's factory. These involve staff from director level down, drawn from all areas of the operation. To prevent dangerous situations from dragging on, any work identified at these meetings is made the responsibility of named individuals working within a specific timeframe. "The only way something can be removed from the agenda is if it is completed or not needed after all, for example, because a piece of equipment has changed," says Harrison.

Another important measure is to set priorities for specific problem areas. For example, manual handling and trips and slips are the two main causes of accidents at Schwan's. This is not surprising, since the same two factors account for the majority of accidents across the food industry as a whole, with manual handling taking a 36% share and slips and trips 28%. Many companies will find that targeting those two areas will have a major impact on overall accident rates (see panels).

Schwan's policy on manual handling is to eliminate it wherever possible using automation. Where that's not possible, each task is risk assessed and correct procedures are established, while staff undergo a three-year cycle of training in lifting and handling. "Our target this year is to reduce accidents from manual handling by a further 10%," says Harrison.

So a good health and safety policy is good business practice as well as an ethically 'good thing'. But how far can it go towards helping companies protect themselves legally in the event of a serious incident? According to Andrew Stacey, a partner in the food group of law firm Pinsent Masons, the situation in terms of criminal liability is a difficult one.

"The basic test is not whether the employer has been negligent, but whether it has done everything that is reasonably practicable to prevent the accident," he says. "Therefore, as a matter of practicality, the sensible operator will want to go further than the minimum requirement to build in a sufficient margin of error."

But it can be virtually impossible to know whether that margin is sufficient until an accident actually happens. "It's like when people make a will, they never find out if it's effective until the person has actually died, by which time it's too late," says Stacey.

The burden in civil claims is rather different, with the injured party having to show that the employer was negligent. While an employee behaving recklessly will not let the employer off the hook as far as criminal actions go, it can reduce the damages the company has to pay out in personal injury claims.

In the end, improving health and safety is about changing attitudes. As in the case of Schwan's, everybody from director to fork lift truck driver has to accept that they are part of the solution. FM

Preventing manual handling injuries:

Identify which tasks present a serious risk of acute or chronic injury.
Assess these tasks in detail to decide what factors lead to the risk.
Introduce mechanisation where this is reasonably practicable, for example, conveyors, vacuum lifters or bulk handling equipment.
Where mechanisation is not possible, reduce the weight of sacks or boxes to 25kg or below, improve the ergonomic design of work stations and work areas and consider job rotation, training, medical surveillance and job transfers.
Consult fully with trade union safety representatives or other employee representatives and workers to ensure solutions are workable.

Preventing slips and trips:

Eliminate contamination of the floor with water or food, for example, by using counters with lips.
Prevent contamination of walkways, for example, by installing bunds around equipment.
Limit the effects of contamination by cleaning up immediately.
Ensure the floor has sufficient surface roughness. Floors which may become water contaminated should have at least 20 microns roughness, increasing to 45 microns for milk and 70 microns for olive oil.
Ensure that the cleaning regime reduces the slip risk. Certain treatments can make floors more slippery.
Select suitable footwear. In general, softer soles are the least slippery on wet floors.
Carrying loads or pushing/pulling trolleys increases the slip risk and should be eliminated or reduced.
Eliminate holes, slopes or uneven surfaces.
Eliminate materials or objects likely to cause tripping.