General news and gubbins

Legionella in cars

The Health Protection Agency estimates that up to 20% of cases of Legionnaires’ Disease may originate from the stagnant warmish water in windscreen washer sprays.

Legionnaires’ Disease can be fatal and about 10% of all people who contract it die from the infection or from associated complications, while the remainder get flu-like symptoms with coughs, headaches, tiredness and muscle aches.

The tests found the Legionella bacteria to be present in one in five cars which had water-only in the washer bottle, however it was not present in any car which had standard screenwash solution added to the water. Those identified most at-risk from this are people classed as professional drivers, which is where the work-related link comes in, such as sales reps or van drivers and also men in their 50s or older. (It logically follows therefore that if you are a 50 year old male van driver you will be lucky to make it through to the weekend...)

Links: Daily Telegraph | BBC News

Regulation change for driving at work

A new directive is slowly wending its way through the European legislative process which will place new requirements on employers in respect of people who are driving for their work. The target is for it to become European law next year, 2011, and then each member state will have until 2013 to enact it locally.

The main change is that a requirement for eyesight tests is to be introduced and the expectation is that commercial driving licence holders will have an eyesight test evey five years, while standard driving licence holders will need to have one, provided by their employer, every 10 to 15 years.

Details are still sketchy, but more information is here from the Chartered Institute of Logistics and some original research on this has been done by Specsavers.

HSMC changes

Recent changes over at HSMC Towers:

Welcome to Julia - working full time in HSMC towers near Tewkesbury
Joint greetings to Mr. Dale and Mr. Kelvin both of whom are working full time on HSMC's audiometry provision

HSMC has also been appointed as the retained advisor for Bedford Estates' Woburn Abbey and Woburn Safari Park where we will be providing weekly onsite assistance and advice.

HSMC was also awarded the audiometry supply contract for Norbert Dentressangle distribution centre in Glasgow and for Birmingham City Council.

Spirometry and more audiometry

Just a quickie that from April 2010 we're expanding our services again, with the addition of Spirometry (lung function tests) and with another mobile audiometry unit being delivered to help reduce the lead-times from order confirmation to delivery.

Spirometry can be done either as a stand-alone service or in conjunction with audiometry.

For the technologically literate

While HSMC employees are a fine and dedicated bunch, we do feel it is our duty to highlight gross ineptness where this is merited:

David, whom some of you will have met doing the hearing tests, was having a problem with his phone today. He couldn't hear people talking to him and they were having problems hearing him. It turns out he was holding his phone upside down...

Warning for mid-life crisis men...

One remarkable characteristic of the British is our ability to ignore all semblance of reality and live a happy existence largely composed of ill-judged hope and self delusion. One manifestation of this is that despite our Mediterranean cousins getting the lion's share of the sun, we buy more convertible cars than all our more southerly neighbours. In the UK, we get an average of 51 days sunshine a year but buy twice as many convertible cars than the Italians and nearly ten times as many as the Spanish. One downside of this is that as a result we're all going to be deaf as a post. With burnt heads.

In a study conducted using seven different convertibles at speeds of 50, 60 and 70 mph, it was found that with the top down the drivers were at noise levels of between 88 and 90 decibels, reaching up to 99 decibels on poor road surfaces (such as concrete sections) or in heavy traffic conditions. That's exceeding the 85dB(A) action level for workplace noise exposure and is well into the zone where it is known to cause hearing loss. These noise levels will also be increased should the driver then turn the radio on to be heard above the wind and road noise. Interestingly, in the study, the model of the convertible had little impact on the overall noise exposure.

Separating vehicles and pedestrians

A little girl at a supermarket in Americaland has a miraculous escape when an out of control car hits those metal poles you see everywhere in car parks - there is a video in the article here.

Life expectancy on hard shoulder

As many people know, the hard shoulder is the most dangerous place to be on the motorway, but few know just how dangerous it really is. You are more likely to be killed on the hard shoulder than anywhere else on the motorway, and for those who were killed here, they had been there on average for less than 26 minutes.

50% discounts on ladders

The HSE have their Shattered Lives campaign up and running and as part of it are operating a ladder exchange programme for anyone with damaged, broken or bent ladders where you can get up to 50% off a new one.

Heights accounted for 58 deaths and over 3600 serious injuries in the year 07/08 and this campaign is part of the HSE's drive to reduce these numbers.

The campaign also includes posters and downloadable leaflets for employees and over 5000 ladders have already been exchanged under the programme.

Free stuff from the HSE

Up to now, if you wanted the dry text of health and safety regulations you could get hold of those online but if you wanted the HSE's Approved Codes of Proactice (ACoPs) or guidance you had to pay but from September this is changing and more stuff is now available for free download.

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Elf n' safety reduce holes in salt cellars

'Health and Safety', those mythical nameless agents of Satan, are blamed for mandating a reduction in the number of holes in salt cellars.

WARNING: This link is to the Daily Mail's website so be very careful about clicking on it if you are sitting anywhere where other people may see you. They could jump to the conclusion that you are therefore a Daily Mail reader and this may harm your work prospects and may lead to complete social isolation, your family leaving you and a spiral into a pit of despair and self loathing. Even your dog will look at you with sadness, pack its bowl and walk away.

Audiometry on an iPhone

If you have an iPhone and fancy a (very) rough and ready hearing test there is a sub-£1 audiometry application out now which does it. Its not wildly accurate but does a reasonable 'thereabouts' job.

While we're at it, there are a few noise meter type applications around the for the iPhone as well. As with the audiometry one above, they're not as accurate as the proper equipment, but are useful for a rough indication of whether you have a problem or not and whether to get someone in to do an assessment. Our favourite of the current crop is the SPL application from StudioSixDigital which can have its sensitivity adjusted to something approximating a decent measurement - the screen image here is from this. iPhoners can find it on iTunes.

Hearing loss articles

There have been some good articles recently on the Beeb's website about noise, hearing loss and potential for future medical treatments for hearing loss.

• Stem cells used to grow new sensory cells
• Young music fans in hearing loss time bomb warning
• Pete Townsend warning the iPod generation

The perils of boating

Absolutely nothing to do with health and safety at work, but this is too good a gem to let lie. HSMC's illustrious leader Adam bought a small boat (basically an open bathtub) and launched it onto the river Avon. You really want to know how it went...

Fire enforcement binge

Hundreds of hotel and guest house premises have been served with enforcement notices. In most cases, the underlying problem was a failure to comply with the fire risk assessment requirements.

Wine Competition Round 2

After the first case of wine was won by Darren at Etiam Group, round 2 is now open for all those desperate to get quaffing.

A wee joke

A man walks into his Doctor's surgery and says "Doctor, I'm having problems with my hearing".
The Doctor replies, "OK, tell me about the symptoms".
"Sure", says the man, "Homer is yellow and fat, Marge has big hair..."

Newsletter Issue 1

First issue of the new HSMC newsletter which we hope will help pass a few minutes over a coffee. Some 700 hard copies have been sent out and it is available for download from this site. Don't forget to have a go at winning some free wine!

New competition

If you fancy some free wine, or maybe you are deep in the doo doo with someone and giving them some wine would get you back in good books, then this is for you. HSMC's inaugural 'Win some wine' competition is now open - have a look at the competitions page for info.