Health And Safety

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Wussername said:

Why would Richardsons wish to bring themselves into line with Hoseasones. Surely Richardsons is the principle and Hoseasones the agent. Does that lead to Tort Liability? That a principle is held vicariously liable and must pay damages to an injured third party does not excuse the agent who actually committed the tortious acts. A person is always liable for his or her own torts. Why therefore would Richardsons and their agent Hoseasones be so united in this matter. Could it be that their legal advisers consider that they could find themselves exposed in the litigation climate that exists today.

I am not a legal eagle, not even a legal sparrow so my thinking could well be dismissed and probably will. 

"I do not think there was any event in particular that brought it about as I believe everyone would have heard about it."

You may be right but serious accidents do happen.

03 August 2017

A woman has by flown to hospital by air ambulance with serious injuries after falling from a boat and sustaining injuries from a propeller.

The East of England Ambulance Service Trust was called at 12.32pm today to Acle Bridge, Acle, in Norwich, to reports of an incident involving a casualty who was in the river.

Two ambulances

 An ambulance officer

Volunteers from Suffolk Accident and Rescue Service (SARS),

A specialist hazardous area response team (HART)

East Anglian Air Ambulance attended.

A woman had fallen from a boat into the river. She was out of the river when ambulance staff arrived and they worked with fire and rescue staff to safely get her to land.

The patient was flown by air ambulance to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital with serious leg injuries. With life changing injuries.

Accidents do happen and as far as I'm aware the above incident is not related to Richardsons or Hoseasones in any shape or form. But I bet that they know about it.

I do not see how it would be difficult to introduce a professional qualification for the trial run drivers, indeed I think that there is a certain inevitability that this will come about.

Finally I cannot see the insurance companies rushing to insure inexperienced holiday makers driving about in boats worth several tens of thousand of pounds or indeed pursuing holiday makers for damages, far easier to challenge the hire company for failing to give adequate instruction.

Andrew

 

Most injuries are caused by people getting on and off the boat, they are not usually the ones driving and may not have been the recipient of the trial run instruction.

[Wussername]

3 minutes ago, Philosophical said:

Most injuries are caused by people getting on and off the boat, they are not usually the ones driving and may not have been the recipient of the trial run instruction.

But the helm will have been given instruction and it is his responsibility to inform the crew that it is safe to get off the boat.

[Guest]

Just now, Wussername said:

But the helm will have been given instruction and it is his responsibility to inform the crew that it is safe to get off the boat.

If the skipper says it is OK to get off the boat and I don't think it is, I'm not going to jump or step, Do we now need to give those who have been the trial instruction "train the trainer" instruction so they are qualified to train the remainder of the crew? 

[Wussername]

3 minutes ago, Philosophical said:

If the skipper says it is OK to get off the boat and I don't think it is, I'm not going to jump or step, Do we now need to give those who have been the trial instruction "train the trainer" instruction so they are qualified to train the remainder of the crew? 

I'm not sure that I understand your reasoning. I certainly would not expect a crew member to get off the boat if he or she felt unsure. 

Andrew

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Wussername said:

I'm not sure that I understand your reasoning. I certainly would not expect a crew member to get off the boat if he or she felt unsure. 

Andrew

I was being literal with your words, you say it is safe because from the wheelhouse the gap looks like 6 inches but in reality it is 3 foot.

My main point is that until we know what the issue causing these new policy decisions is,  it is too easy to jump to conclusions and attribute the fix to be the "trial run". 

[ZimbiIV]

Having written many (100's) of risk assessments and many "best practice" methods in the print industry.

I can only draw 2 conclusions.

1 A well written risk assessment has only has one effect, it will cover your a?rse when something goes wrong, which it will.

2 No matter how idiot proof you make something, a better class of idiot will always come along.

The first was told by the tutor who was instructing us to write risk assessment on a week long course.

The second experience.

paul

[grendel]

You all seem to be concentrating on the insurance angle, but Clive has already stated its not to do with the insurance.

Now health and safety - once a risk has been perceived (no matter how small the actual likelyhood of the risk occurring, then the risk either has to be removed or reduced or mitigated.

So let us suppose the risk is for a sole responsible adult falling overboard.

the consequences could be the boat sailing off into the sunset either on its own or worse with a couple of frightened children on board. then you consider the person who has fallen overboard, if they are not rescued a fatality could occur.

You then ask yourself -  can we remove the risk - the sad answer is yes, if you dont hire to lone responsible adults, you remove the risk.

if you ask what could be done to mitigate the risk, well wearing a life jacket might help, but you still have a boat heading goodness knows where, maybe like ribs with outboards a safety lanyard to cut the throttle - would this work on a 40 foot boat while mooring - maybe - maybe not.

so summing up the answers you decide that it is safer not to hire to lone responsible adults, thus removing an identified risk.

The basis of health and safety is the best thing to remove a risk is to replace the task with a different way of doing things that removes the necessity for the task, no task - no risk.

no lone responsible adults - no risk- problem solved.

[grendel]

having done a risk assessors training course at the hse laboratory, where the whole point of the course was to assess the risk assessments others write for the tasks they perform, the main point of the whole course was to find a way of doing the task, that avoided all of the risk areas involved.

eg if part of the task involved carrying boxes down stairs, the resolution is either a goods lift, or move the storage downstairs. not think of an easier way to transport the item on the stairs.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, grendel said:

You all seem to be concentrating on the insurance angle, but Clive has already stated its not to do with the insurance.

Now health and safety - once a risk has been perceived (no matter how small the actual likelyhood of the risk occurring, then the risk either has to be removed or reduced or mitigated.

So let us suppose the risk is for a sole responsible adult falling overboard.

the consequences could be the boat sailing off into the sunset either on its own or worse with a couple of frightened children on board. then you consider the person who has fallen overboard, if they are not rescued a fatality could occur.

You then ask yourself -  can we remove the risk - the sad answer is yes, if you dont hire to lone responsible adults, you remove the risk.

if you ask what could be done to mitigate the risk, well wearing a life jacket might help, but you still have a boat heading goodness knows where, maybe like ribs with outboards a safety lanyard to cut the throttle - would this work on a 40 foot boat while mooring - maybe - maybe not.

so summing up the answers you decide that it is safer not to hire to lone responsible adults, thus removing an identified risk.

The basis of health and safety is the best thing to remove a risk is to replace the task with a different way of doing things that removes the necessity for the task, no task - no risk.

no lone responsible adults - no risk- problem solved.

So let us suppose the risk is for a sole responsible adult falling overboard.

I personally think this is the risk

[Wussername]

21 hours ago, Philosophical said:

 

My main point is that until we know what the issue causing these new policy decisions is,  it is too easy to jump to conclusions and attribute the fix to be the "trial run". 

I do not think that we will ever know why Hoseasones have gone this route and why Richardsons have followed. Statistics show that the industry has a very good safety record. As for the trial run I feel that many trial run employees  have contributed to this safety achievement and yet there is still room for improvement.

Andrew

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Wussername said:

I do not think that we will ever know why Hoseasones have gone this route and why Richardsons have followed. Statistics show that the industry has a very good safety record. As for the trial run I feel that many trial run employees  have contributed to this safety achievement and yet there is still room for improvement.

Andrew

I agree there is always room for improvement but at what cost to the boatyard who will have to employ more staff to perform this enhanced trial run and induction. Statistics show that more people are injured getting on and off the boats than in "navigational or boat handling incidents" 

[Wussername]

29 minutes ago, Philosophical said:

I agree there is always room for improvement but at what cost to the boatyard who will have to employ more staff to perform this enhanced trial run and induction. Statistics show that more people are injured getting on and off the boats than in "navigational or boat handling incidents" 

Clearly an enhanced trial run and induction is not an instant fix, and will take time to implement and provide a historical audit trail.  I fail to see how this would contribute towards a boatyards financial disadvantage.

As for people getting injured getting on and off boats, yes a concern, and what we understand is that which has been reported and those who have been hospitalised. There must be many who limp about long after the holiday. We must also take into consideration that many are  are of a vintage who do not recover as quickly as the eighteen year old. It needs to be addressed. A solution is not insurmountable.

 

Andrew

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Wussername said:

Clearly an enhanced trial run and induction is not an instant fix, and will take time to implement and provide a historical audit trail.  I fail to see how this would contribute towards a boatyards financial disadvantage.

As for people getting injured getting on and off boats, yes a concern, and what we understand is that which has been reported and those who have been hospitalised. There must be many who limp about long after the holiday. We must also take into consideration that many are  are of a vintage who do not recover as quickly as the eighteen year old. It needs to be addressed. A solution is not insurmountable.

 

Andrew

As you have said it (trial runs) despite being ad hoc and unstructured work very well at the moment, the next level is a formal structure. This is a formal training session, typically a training session is written around objectives for example: At the end of the session the participant is able to ................. this has to be validated normally by either a written test with a pass % or a practical test with key test points.

On this thread I have not seen a specific risk or issue identified or incident linked to a less than adequate trial run. in the absence of this it is very difficult/impossible to plan effective and measurable training (trial run) around the idea of "be safe, drive the boat better and don't fall in"        

[JanetAnne]

Boiling water is risk on a boat especially one underway.  So, having identified the risk it must be time to remove all the kettles or nail them down!

 

Am I the only one on here fed up with having other people think for me 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, JanetAnne said:

Boiling water is risk on a boat especially one underway.  So, having identified the risk it must be time to remove all the kettles or nail them down!

 

Am I the only one on here fed up with having other people think for me 

Getting out of bed is a slip/trip hazard, then there is a risk of scolding yourself in the shower and you've not even got close to the stairs yet and it's only 10 mins into a 24 hour day.

How do we survive?

[JohnK]

As you have said it (trial runs) despite being ad hoc and unstructured work very well at the moment, the next level is a formal structure. This is a formal training session, typically a training session is written around objectives for example: At the end of the session the participant is able to ................. this has to be validated normally by either a written test with a pass % or a practical test with key test points.
On this thread I have not seen a specific risk or issue identified or incident linked to a less than adequate trial run. in the absence of this it is very difficult/impossible to plan effective and measurable training (trial run) around the idea of "be safe, drive the boat better and don't fall in"        

If it does go to formal training testing what would happen if someone doesn’t pass?
Can’t take the boat?
Still pays?
Gets refund?
There would be someone out of pocket either way and it would be open to abuse.
Scary.
I’d bet a lot of money there will be something in a few years though. Is there anything else in the UK where you’re in control of something so big and mixing with joe public without having to prove competence?

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, JohnK said:

 

If it does go to formal training testing what would happen if someone doesn’t pass?
Can’t take the boat?
Still pays?
Gets refund?
There would be someone out of pocket either way and it would be open to abuse.
Scary.
I’d bet a lot of money there will be something in a few years though. Is there anything else in the UK where you’re in control of something so big and mixing with joe public without having to prove competence?

 

Agreed and for what; but for now there is still no link between the hire restrictions and some deficiency in the trial run.

As for the future if some new legislation is applied unless the hirer can can pass the whatever I guess they get told that they cannot take the boat out of the boatyard. At least they will have convenient water and pumpout on site.

[Wussername]

31 minutes ago, JanetAnne said:

Boiling water is risk on a boat especially one underway.  So, having identified the risk it must be time to remove all the kettles or nail them down!

 

Am I the only one on here fed up with having other people think for me 

Please do not worry. during the years 1993 to 2016 there were 20 reported Burns/Scalds. This equals 0.83 incidents per year. Annual Marine Incident Statistics 19th May 2017.

Andrew

[grendel]

26 minutes ago, JohnK said:

Is there anything else in the UK where you’re in control of something so big and mixing with joe public without having to prove competence?

Digger land?

[Wussername]

7 minutes ago, Philosophical said:

Agreed and for what; but for now there is still no link between the hire restrictions and some deficiency in the trial run.

As for the future if some new legislation is applied unless the hirer can can pass the whatever I guess they get told that they cannot take the boat out of the boatyard. At least they will have convenient water and pumpout on site.

As far as I am aware nobody has stated that there should be a test. Just an audit trail of experience.

Andrew

[ExSurveyor]

28 minutes ago, JohnK said:

Is there anything else in the UK where you’re in control of something so big and mixing with joe public without having to prove competence?

Have you been to Tesco's lately

[JohnK]

Digger land?

Good point.
I guess they’d argue you’re under constant supervision.
Having done digger racing at a Diggerland a few years ago I’d challenge that though


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[JohnK]

Have you been to Tesco's lately

Haha, very true.
I find I’m wanting to punch more people in Waitrose though.


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[Guest]

1 minute ago, Wussername said:

As far as I am aware nobody has stated that there should be a test. Just an audit trail of experience.

Andrew

It is a bit like saying "we want a strong economy" or we "want jobs for all"; without a precise definition of what the requirements of an "audit trail" are it is just "nice words" 

[Wussername]

The requirements of an audit trail might well be seen to be important in a court of law where a duty of care needs to be established or that a company has not only been seen to have taken reasonable care but has taken reasonable care.