by Roy Bush, Health & Safety Executive Inspector with responsibility for the stone industry. If you have health & safety issues you want to discuss with Roy, telephone him on 01604 738322 or email to roy.bush@hse.gsi.gov.uk.

When was the last time you gave any really serious consideration to workplace health and safety?

I don’t mean that you work purposely in an unsafe manner or expect others to do so, but how high does it figure in your day to day thoughts?

After all, there’s a credit crunch on and we’re in recession in the UK aren’t we?

It isn’t easy for any business. Just keeping your head above water can be hard enough without having to worry about all the regulatory headaches that are all around you.

The only problem with that way of thinking is that it is negative and likely to damage your business.

Properly integrated, health and safety can improve your business. Not only will it make it safer for you and your employees, it makes you think about the way in which the work is organised, often identifying simple changes that will improve efficiency.

Ah, you might think, but there’s only me. I’m self employed and I’ve got it all organised how I like it, why do I need to change anything?

Well, if anything you have even more to lose. If you have an accident, who is going to do your work? How is that order going to be met? If you’re off work for more than a few days, are those customers who have now been let down going to come back to you? It is time to start taking health and safety very seriously indeed.

Most businesses in this industry are relatively small and many are made up of the self-employed.

This means that by and large the perception of risk in the industry is low. This is because very few in it will have worked somewhere where there has been a serious or fatal accident.

What is needed is a reality check. Go back and read the article in the January issue of Natural Stone Specialist, the one titled ‘Profit from Safety’. You know, the one that didn’t affect you.

As an experienced Inspector with the Health & Safety Executive I can tell you it most certainly does affect you.

Yes, you!

Did you see how many people get injured and killed? Everything in that article could happen to you. Surely you’d want to do everything you could to prevent it?

But, there’s a recession on isn’t there? There isn’t the money.

Why does everyone always assume that health and safety has to cost money?

You can spend money on it if you want to and within sensible limits I wouldn’t discourage that. But what about the basics?

Have a look around the workshop. Nice and neat and tidy is it? Everything in its place? Nice clean work area, free from too much dust or slurry, nothing in anyone’s way?

No? Why not? Poorly laid out workplaces are inefficient. You’re always having to move stuff around to get at things and you can’t find anything. It costs nothing to tidy up, except a bit of time. Who knows, you might even find that widget you lost last week. The only thing stopping you from doing it is your attitude.

Now consider this: you go to two places looking to buy the same thing. One of the places is a right mess. The sales staff can’t find the brochure you wanted (and that was when you found someone to talk to because actually you thought the sales person was one the company’s scruffier customers!). The other place is well laid out with a clean and tidy showroom, friendly, neatly presented staff with a general air of calm efficiency.

Now, given that the prices are roughly the same, which one are you going to prefer to do business with?

It’s just the same with your customers. You need a competitive advantage, so why not make yourself more attractive for customers to do business with? Oh, and by the way, you will have a safer workplace as a result.

You don’t need to have a super glass fronted corporate look gin palace of a workshop / showroom either. Just make it tidy, clean it up, re-organise where you think it would help. Put clean workwear on. Be honest, if you were a prospective customer walking into your workshop / showroom for the first time, what would your impression be?

A lot of health and safety really is common sense… combined with experience.

You can learn from the experience of others and not make the same mistakes they did.

For example, stop using ‘A’ frames to store stone slabs. They aren’t safe. Use ‘W’ frames or ‘toast racks’ instead.

Sorry, I forgot, no stone slab has ever fallen over or slipped out at the bottom at your place, has it?

Of course, there’s much more to health and safety than I have mentioned above and I hope to be able to give you some more advice on a fairly regular basis.

If you want to talk to me, I don’t bite and I am contactable at the telephone number and email address above.

Just one last thought. This industry has a bit of a macho image, doesn’t it?

Well, how macho would it look if you were lying on the floor, soaked in your own blood, with a gaping open wound in your leg, screaming in agony as they lift the 100kg stone slab off you so that the paramedics can treat you?

Still think it doesn’t apply to you?