Last year nearly half of our recordable injuries involved hands or fingers.  We now have new guidelines for wearing gloves.

“Gloves to be worn at all times in all production/operational areas. The only exceptions allowed are when driving vehicles, while only walking on a ground level designated route and when carrying out non hazardous work that relies on touch sensitivity where gloves impair ability e.g. writing or using a touch sensitive key pad.  Gloves should not be used if a risk assessment identifies they may introduce an additional hazard e.g. entanglement while working with a lathe.”

Co-incidentally last week we had a TRI when an employee crushed the tip of one of his fingers whilst replacing a return roller on a conveyor.  It seems that as he was trying to free the roller off the spindle it suddenly became free and he trapped his finger between the roller and an adjacent pipeline.  The risk assessment and safe system of work for this operation are being reviewed to see if the risk can be eliminated/reduced going forwards.

The revised Standards and a supporting Global Safety Alert are in the download section of UK News.