Mum has a Job that involves travelling to addresses in the van visiting people.

Like most of the country, we’ve had a lot of snow that’s now frozen into ice that’s mega slippy.

Is mum within her rights to refuse to work due to the pavements being like this , or is it just a case of its outside of the office so tough ?

Just bit worried about her that’s all.

Cheers

If it’s part of her job then it’s down to the employer to make sure she has a safe working environment, whether that is in an office or elsewhere. They probably aren’t in a position to make the call so it’ll be up to her to inform them or use her best judgement. Basically she’s well within her rights to refuse to do something she considers unsafe, in fact she would be negligent if she considered it unsafe and carried on regardless. TINLA, IANAL, etc…

I agree, and the management of health and safety reg require an employer to write a suitable and sufficient risk assessment which should take into account the place of work, (which in this case will include risks due to weather conditions, but could equally include risk of sunburn in summer) as well as the tasks carried out. Suitable and sufficient risk assessment will include actions/provisions to reduce risks identified and be communicated to your mum.

edit – that’s communicated to your mum in this particular case, my employers don’t show power station risk assessment to mine, though she’d probably like the colour scheme.

Your mum is still working for her employer regardless of her location. Her employer must take weather conditions into consideration when planning her work and make suitable adjustments as required.

the employer can not assess every work location at all times, what they would do is a generic assessment with forseeable hazards. Accessing icy footpaths would be forseeable and they could implement a control measure such as wearing boots with the addition of snow chains / socks which attach to the sole – with suitable information, instruction and training your mum would be able to decide if they are appropriate for the specific environment. Would then be down to her to get out of the van and walk or not.

As a health & safety practitioner I recomend heated slippers 🙂

lol you people make me **** sick. You really do. All the above is utter tosh and why we are utterly uncompetitive in the world and going to the dogs.

YOU HAVE ALL BEEN BRAIN WASHED AND ARE TALKING IN A STRANGE FORM OF NEWSPEAK. Hazards, assessment, suitable adjustments, negligence are all just a load of jargon terms.

tthew suggests that “they should write a risk assessment”. Barf. I’m sick of writing risk assessments, because i do then in my head the whole time. Hundreds of them a second.

Your Mum should make a call if her usual workload has become too much and perhaps just send an email in to explain why she hasn’t visited as many people as usual; perhaps she should buy herself some snow spikes if shes worried about falling over or perhaps you should buy her some.

And NO she shouldn’t refuse to work. The country has some snow, there isn’t a civil war or a tsunami or zombies.

Get her ^

Joe, just say what’s on your mind.

Hohoho…i haven’t even warmed up yet…

You seem to have masturbated yourself into a bit of a frenzy already. Are you sure you’re ok?

You are wrong Joe, perhaps you shouldn’t be writing risk assessments!

A personal risk assessment is done by the employee and is just a ‘head’ exercise, no writing required. In exceptional circumstances where an employee can’t work to the agreed safe processes, a manager etc may decide to do an on-site risk assessment to allow/disallow the activity.

The company should be supplying appropriate gear to enable her to work safely, in this instance the first thing would be ice grips which slip over footwear and are pretty cheap, secondly snow snocks are an option but their use by the employee would be optional based on their own risk assessment at the time.

Sunburn? Why the heck would that require someone to write a risk assessment, other than being written into a standard staff handbook type thing.

My employer provides ice grips, snow snocks, and also suncream, even sunglasses for those involved in overhead work 🙂

Spooky – its not called a risk-assessment in that case, because that is newspeak new world whacky nonsense gibberish. It’s called “common sense”.

Joe………..i like the cut of your jib mate…. 😀

I’m sick of writing risk assessments, because i do then in my head the whole time. Hundreds of them a second.

Wow you write in your own head hundreds of times a second

*swoons*

I did lol @ the sunburn thang.

Do you visit the Congo regularly Joe?

You sound like a hero 😀

Cheers Joe, made me chuckle ta; good to see the usuals straight in with the hand wringing.

@ Joe. 😆 The problem isn’t with the requirement, it’s law that has been developed to prevent people from getting hurt in the workplace. This is good for employers too as they don’t get sued for being negligent in their duty which is always more expensive than doing it right in the first place.

The problem is that people use health and safety as a bollocks excuse to close schools because of 1cm of snow, ban conkers, say they won’t grit roads ‘cos if they do it wrong they’ll get sued etc. etc. etc. In this I would heartily agree with you.

edit – exposure to sun would be a genuine risk on a cloudless summer day under many circumstances if you had an outdoors job. Easy to control too with clothing and suncream, and inclusion in a staff handbook would likely be considered suitable and sufficient.

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen”

A Einstein

simmy – should your mother be working unsupervised or allowed to drive a vehicle if she is not able to work out for herself that (1) paths may be icy (2) walking on icy paths may be more dangerous (3) extra care or precautions may be required…

If it helps round here when its bad the posties wear these sort of thing: http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/categorydisplay_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_categoryId_255753_langId_-1

A good employer would probably provide them, but for less than a tenner (available in garages, lidl/aldi, halfords, and the low end of the ‘climbing shop’ sector plus others) – its probably not a big ask.

The country has some snow, there isn’t a civil war or a tsunami or zombies….

Oh bugger now you’ve just turned those into forseable risks… …thats at least two more scenarios I am going to have to plan for!

Well said Joe. Disappointing to see so many people taking H&S nonsense to heart.

Cheers Joe, made me chuckle ta; good to see the usuals straight in with the hand wringing.

Its only because we take this seriously we have hands to wring 😉

Hey sod it you get hurt at work, be as fool hardy as you like, what do i care.

Your Mum should make a call if her usual workload has become too much and perhaps just send an email in to explain why she hasn’t visited as many people as usual; perhaps she should buy herself some snow spikes if shes worried about falling over or perhaps you should buy her some.

Well, you know fek all about H&S, that much is clear.

————————————-

This is correct

If it’s part of her job then it’s down to the employer to make sure she has a safe working environment,

However, this is not

perhaps she should buy herself some snow spikes i

I’ll explain why
The employer has a duty of care to the employees. The employees also have a duty of care to themselves and their colleagues
The employer should have a risk assessment and a safe working practice for any task. In this case the task is “visiting homes” and the risks include driving, being bitten by dogs, falling on ice etc.
These risks must be reduced to an acceptable level or the task should not be carried out
If PPE is required to make the task safe (Ice spikes) then the employer must provide them and the employee must wear them! It is not down to the employee to supply their own PPE! Fact.
At the same time it IS down to the employee to assess wether a task is too dangerous to carry out.
“Refusal’ is the wrong word though.
If she deems it too dangerous to walk on a certain setts icy slope (For example) she should report this to her manager who should take steps to ensure the task is done safely, which can be achieved more than one way.

H&S is basically ‘common sense’ written down, because some people are eejits and think they know it all and get hurt! 🙂

My qualifications:
TUC Trained Safety Rep, ex Concrete Plant supervisor and Weighbridge Clerk. I’ve work with the sort of H&S and equipment that kills people without noticing for 23 years. I’ve been to the meetings, seen what happens when it goes wrong and taked to a guy who saw someones head literally crushed like a grape because he thought he knew better

H&S is basically ‘common sense’ written down, because some people are eejits and think they know it all and get hurt!

Joe and those who appear to like the cut of his jib, amongst others. 🙂

are there clauses in company insurance policies which stipulate what H&S policies/ measures need to be in place in a given working environment/ for given working practices?
do more cumbersome H&S practices result in lower premiums?

Anyone of you ranters stop to think about why we have H&S legislation?

Anyone of you ranters stop to think about why we have H&S legislation?

I think it’s to stop us getting on with stuff mol.

WTFU

Tthew – totally agree. Health and safety is mostly common sense and when implemented correctly prevents injuries and deaths. Unfortunately it is usually the stupid acts such as banning conkers that make the headlines. The HSE’s myth of the month are perfect examples of health and safety idiocy. From experience the people who slag health and safety are the first ones to.complain when they are injured. If I was in charge of h and s for delivery drivers then shoe socks would be issued as they are cheap and effective.

are there clauses in company insurance policies which stipulate what H&S policies/ measures need to be in place in a given working environment/ for given working practices?
do more cumbersome H&S practices result in lower premiums?

Yes and no. Insurers will want to see evidence of a variety of measures (usually to a recognised management standard such as HSG65) to provide assurance that the employer is complying with statute law and recognised guidance. In my experience its the super concise and well used and regarded practices that can result in lower premiums.

Joe – Member

lol you people make me **** sick. You really do. All the above is utter tosh and why we are utterly uncompetitive in the world and going to the dogs.

UK ranked as 8th most competitive country in world

It seems that “utterly uncompetitive” might be “utter tosh” ? 💡

Cambridge City seems to have suspended rubbish collection due to the very small amount of snow we now have. I’ve cycled to work every day this week, but its too dangerous for the bin men to walk on the pavement!

Simmy if your mum doesnt want to do her job, there are 5300 ex squaudies ,plus blockbuster, jessops and hmv staff and me who will do it using common sence and skill to get the job done.

Hand safety my arse as Jim Royal said, its only snow, not flesh eating bacteria

Thanks for the replies.

It’s me who’s bothered about her as she is bloody stubborn and should have retired 5 years ago but only does 2 days a week now.

I was more looking for some legislation to throw at her like ” work will be in trouble if you falling doing so and so ” to kind of encourage her to take care.

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I work for myself so I don’t know too much about employee risks etc.

Cheers

Hang on – what common sense should she be using here?

Should she NOT be walking cos it’s icy, or should she be walking anyway cos.. what.. it’s common sense to walk on ice? Or should she ask her employer for some shoe covers? Which of these is common sense?

I think it’s down to her really, if she doesn’t feel confident and safe, then she’s not.
The conditions don’t apply to everyone equally.

Common sence is learnt based on experience,training and the ability to see and understand dangers around us, some have common sence and some are just thick.

But any of us can have an accident,mitigating the exposure to that accident happening is down to us, our surroundings and exterior forces, some of which we dont have control over.

From an early age we learn icy weather means slippy, so we should have learnt to take more care or go suitably equiped.

footflaps – Member
Cambridge City seems to have suspended rubbish collection due to the very small amount of snow we now have. I’ve cycled to work every day this week, but its too dangerous for the bin men to walk on the pavement!

Well it may be that, but there are other reasons worth considering:

(1) Lids freeze shut on bins and its PITA to free them up, otherwise they don’t empty.

(2) The council has a limited number of ‘land services’ staff, and so refuse staff are likely to get redeployed to shoverling, gritting, ploughing services during periods of peak demand.

(3) There is apparently chaos on the roads, adding bin lorries in the mix is not going to help. Plus people leave vehicles etc in stupid place etc when it snows.

Should she NOT be walking cos it’s icy, or should she be walking anyway cos.. what.. it’s common sense to walk on ice? Or should she ask her employer for some shoe covers? Which of these is common sense?

Her employer should be contacting her and letting her know what they want her to do. If the conditions are bad enough for her to need ice spikes then she’s probably better off working from home for the day. If her visits are time critical and need to go ahead regardless of conditions then she needs the right kit and a little bit of training in advance of the bad conditions. The conversation should be initiated by the employer and the employee given decent guidance on what is required.

(1) Lids freeze shut on bins and its PITA to free them up, otherwise they don’t empty.

(2) The council has a limited number of ‘land services’ staff, and so refuse staff are likely to get redeployed to shoverling, gritting, ploughing services during periods of peak demand.

On point 1, I’m quite able to open mine to put rubbish in…
On point 2, refuse collection has long been out sourced, so they’re not generic council workers who can be redeployed.