The Wardman Wire

Further ramblings on health and safety from a H&S professional.

“Sensible”. It’s not a word that inspires the heart to beat faster is it? It reminds us of the shoes we had to wear to school and the boring kid in the class that our parents always wished we could be a bit more like. “That Rodney, he’s such a sensible boy”. My dictionary says it means “judicious, moderate and practical”. I think it just means dull, dull and dull. However on the next line it gives an alternative meaning – “aware, alive to (a thing or idea)”. Now that’s more like it.

So let’s not think of dull, dull, dull safety. Let’s think of being alive to safety, of being aware of it in our lives – not as an obstacle but as an enabler. When applied properly (Oh OK, sensibly) health and safety assessment shouldn’t be a barrier, it should be a tool towards a better, healthier, safer way of life and of work. It should stop people getting hurt unnecessarily, but not stop them having fun. It should reduce risk but not remove it. Life without risk would indeed be dull, dull and dull.

It’s so hard for some people to believe this viewpoint that the Health & Safety Executive has even started a “Myth of the Month” feature on their website to dispel some of the sillier stories that float around. Heard the one about eggboxes giving children salmonella? Yes you’re right, it’s completely barking mad, but people believed it. I even got asked about it at work by colleagues with kids. Honestly, just how daft are people? Sadly more people read the red tops than read the HSE website and so these ridiculous myths get perpetuated and the long list of things which elf’n’safety have apparently had banned gets ever longer. People sneer at us almost as much as they do at Traffic Wardens.

Having criticised the press for the constant bashing they give H&S and for generally blaming us for everything that’s wrong with our society, it’s nice today to give some credit to a newspaper, the Northampton Chronicle and Echo, for taking the opposite view and giving some serious column inches to the idea that safety professionals might not be the killjoy jobsworths that the red tops have made us out to be.

The article previews the upcoming world conker championships, which are being held in Northamptonshire in October and are being sponsored by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health as highlighted in this blog last week.

The article even goes so far as to suggest that we in the profession are reinventing ourselves as “fun-loving individuals with a can-do attitude”. I like the “can-do” bit but don’t for goodness sake spread it around that I’m supposed to be “fun-loving” or my reputation will be ruined for ever.

See I finally mentioned those conkers.