Coastguards have been banned from using flares in rescue missions after they were ruled to be a risk to health and safety. The Libertarian Party totally condemn this ridiculous bureaucratic act and would immediately reverse this most stupid of decisions by the Health & Safety executive.

Below is a copy of the report I submitted to last week’s National Committee. Each UNISON region and service groups should submit a quarterly report on health & safety. I’ll post on the actual national meeting another time. UNISON London Regional Health & Safety Committee...

National Health Service in Scotland - Annual report released jointly between ISD and HPS on sexual health in Scotland

Reported by Lucy Bannerman in today's Times: Fire kills child, 3, and parents as police prevent neighbours from trying to rescue them A pregnant woman, her husband and their three-year-old son were killed in a house fire early yesterday as police who arrived before the fire brigade prevented neighbours from trying to save them. The woman screamed: “Please save my kids” fro...

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a consultation on its new strategy: The Health and Safety of Great Britain, Be Part of the Solution.  The strategy, which is resetting the direction for health and safety, sets out a number of goals to be achieved: These include HSE and Local...

Today marks the start of European Health & Safety Week. The poster to the left is from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work which is co-coordinating activities across Europe. In Britain the Health & Safety Executive is taking the lead (see here). The theme for the next 2...

Health and Safety Executive - This release gives the latest statistics on work-related health, safety and enforcement in Great Britain. The release includes a range of material on the Statistics website.

I think it's fair to say that after "poltical correctness" the good old-fashioned "health and safety" story is well established in the media as a means of filling column space. The Health and Safety Executive comes under constant slagging off on blogs too (not least this one). As a result of the general "elf and safety" madness stories, for the past year or so, the HSE has been running its "Myth o...

It would seem that Nanny's health and safety rules are now putting people's lives at risk. Nanny has decreed that coastguards must complete a health and safety questionnaire, a "vehicle pre-journey risk assessment", before they can respond to calls for help on land. Under the new rules, the teams have to take the time to answer four questions on the type of rescue and journey they are ab...

The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) has published its annual report, the Strategic Resources Framework, highlighting how it plans to spend its 2008/09 budget.