Supplementary Answers submitted by Rt
Hon Jane Kennedy MP
1. CORPORATE
MANSLAUGHTER AND
REMOVAL OF
CROWN IMMUNITY
The Government is committed to introducing new
legislation on corporate manslaughter. It is in the Government
manifesto and there is public support for it.
The Department for Work and Pensions is supporting
the Home Office in developing the proposals for corporate manslaughter
legislation. The Government is still considering exactly which
bodies the new offence should cover. This includes the issue of
Crown immunity.
This is a very complex area of law and it is
crucial we get the issues of accountability right, both in respect
of which organisations the offence should apply to and how it
should apply within such organisations. The Home Office had expected
to settle the position and produce proposals by now, however working
these issues through has taken longer than expected. The Home
Secretary is hoping to publish a draft Bill before the end of
the session.
More widely, the Government takes its health
and safety obligations very seriously. Health and safety duties
already apply to the Crown and non-statutory means exist by which
these are enforced. The Government has given a commitment to lift
Crown immunity for health and safety offences and is looking for
a suitable legislative opportunity to implement this commitment.
2. REGULATORY
REFORM (FIRE
SAFETY) ORDER
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM),
which has primary policy responsibility for general fire safety
legislation, has recently laid before Parliament proposals in
the form of a draft Order for the Reform of Fire Safety Legislation
in England and Wales. The aim of the reform is to rationalise
and consolidate the many pieces of existing fire safety legislation,
which are fragmented, complex and sometimes inconsistent, and
to provide for a risk based approach to fire safety, allowing
for more efficient and effective compliance and enforcement.
Some key features of the Order are:
— to create one simple fire safety
regime applying to all workplaces and other non-domestic premises;
— the regime will be risk assessment-based
with responsibility for fire safety resting with a defined responsible
person;
— there will be no separate formal
validation mechanism for higher risk premises, thus including
the removal of the Fire Certificate (Special Premises) Regulations,
ending the requirement for fire certificates;
— some self-employed people and elements
of the voluntary sector will be brought within the regime;
— a duty to maintain fire precautions
for the use and protection of the fire brigade required under
Building Regulations; and
— a new statutory duty on fire authorities
to promote community fire safety.
The current timetable is for the Order to come
into force in spring 2005. HSE, which has responsibility for process
(or special) fire precautions in the workplace, has been fully
consulted on the development of the Order and it will continue
with future discussions with ODPM.
3. SURVEY OF
WIGAN AND
LEIGH NHS TRUST
Health Case Study—Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust
Services:
Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust employs 5,000 staff
and has approximately 1,170 beds. It is a combined trust with
acute and community services including mental health and rehabilitation.
In 1993, at the start of this study, the trust employed 4,600
staff with 2,100 in nursing and midwifery. The trust board commissioned
an independent report into the extent and cost of sickness absence
within the trust.
Findings
The main findings were:
1. sickness absence level of 44,000 hours
lost in one year at an estimated cost of £3.9 million;
2. an analysis by the Health and Safety
Department showed that, over the same period, 11,635 hours were
lost due to industrial injury. The major cause was manual handling
related injury with 6,720 hours lost. Nurses were most commonly
affected, with patient handling the most common task involved.
The trust drew up an action plan to tackle manual
handling issues. Three areas were prioritised:
1. risk assessment: the identification and
training of risk assessors and subsequent risk assessment programme;
2. the purchase of appropriate equipment;
3. staff training on manual handling.
At the same time, trust policies were reviewed
and amended and all manual handling accidents and near misses
were investigated.
Training
A comprehensive package of training on risk
assessment has evolved for staff across the trust, which is cascaded
to ward staff. The package included:
— ward and departmental managers were
the first group to be trained in work based risk assessment and
staff training, with an emphasis on ergonomic assessment. This
included Grade G and F nurses in the hospital. This course was
initially two days, but has now grown to three days;
— other registered nurses and occupational
therapy staff were trained in a second tranche;
— all staff receive training on new
equipment as it is introduced;
— all community nursing staff who undertake
patient assessment attend an initial three-day risk assessment
course. A selected cohort is then used to cascade regular update
training and to train other grades who do not undertake individual
patient assessment;
— some staff have refresher training
at six monthly intervals, particularly those who do not regularly
use techniques; others have refresher training annually in line
with trust policy;
— therapists receive specialist risk
assessment training. Senior physiotherapists are offered the trainers
course as well;
— student nurses have a one day course
during their first placement with an update course at 18 months;
and
— induction training for all clinical
staff includes two hours on manual handling.
Training is risk-assessment led for all areas
across the trust.
Equipment
In the first two years, a programme of identifying
equipment needs, evaluating equipment, purchasing and training
was instituted. £100,000 was spent on patient handling aids
in that time.
Equipment was trialled before purchase, on wards,
with structured feedback by proforma from all grades and input
from patients.
Outcomes
Table 1 illustrates the figures reported. A
dramatic fall in hours lost, attributable to patient handling,
was seen in the first year and maintained at a fairly stable level
for another two years.
During 1996-97, an auditing programme was introduced,
which identified deficiencies in the risk management system. These
were remedied. Heightened awareness of MSDs was also probably
an outcome of the auditing and contributed to a significant fall
in time lost over the next year.
During 1997-98, £50,000 was spent on electric
profiling beds for selected locations, which may be a factor in
the further reductions.
Costings
Injections of money were necessary in the first
two years to "pump prime" the programme amounting to
£80,000 in the first year and £50,000 in the second.
This equates to roughly 0.2% of budget (currently £110 million).
Maintenance cost of the programme is about 0.02%
of the budget.
The cost of manual handling injuries has fallen
from £800,000 in 1993 to £10,000 in 2001.
Table 1
| Year | Hours lost attributable to patient handling
| Percentage
difference on previous year
| Percentage
decrease on baseline
|
| 1993-94 | 6,720 | —
| — |
| 1994-95 | 1,082 | up 84
| 84 |
1995-96 (1)
| 1,375 |
up 27 | 79.5 |
| 1996-97 | 1,130 | down 18
| 83 |
| 1997-98 | 440 | down 61
| 93 |
| 1998-99 | 192 | down 56
| 97 |
| 1999-2000 | 193 | 0
| 97 |
| 2000-01 | 200 | up 3.6
| 97 |
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(1) The increase of hours lost in 1995-96 resulted from
one injury to a member of Out Patients Department nursing staff.
Following this, a complete review of manual handling practice
was carried out leading to modified systems and further training
within the Out Patients Department at Leigh Infirmary.
4. POLICE OCCUPATIONAL
HEALTH PILOTS
There are no pilots as such being run, but there is a strategy
for occupational health and safety that the police authorities
have developed. The link to the information is given below.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crimpol/police/inside/personnel/healthandsafety.html
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