The QCS Podcast

Welcome to our monthly podcast with Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Senior Health and Safety Consultant at AfterAthena Limited. In this episode, we continue our theme of musculoskeletal back injuries and discuss display screen equipment (DSE) and ergonomics. We'll highlight the regulations that require employers to undertake suitable risk assessments of workstations and provide relevant information and training to DSE users. We'll also discuss the risks associated with working from home and provide tips on how employees can help themselves.

In this episode, Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Senior Health and Safety Consultant at AfterAthena Limited, delves into asbestos management. Neil outlines the purpose of asbestos surveys, identifying asbestos-containing materials (ACMs), assessing their condition, and creating asbestos registers. He also explains the responsibilities of duty holders under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.

Tune in for an overview of these crucial processes aimed at ensuring asbestos safety and compliance.

This episode, hosted by Senior Health and Safety Consultant Neil Hughes-Hutchings at AfterAthena, covers the concept of positive risk taking and how it can benefit individuals in the care sector. It emphasises the importance of sensible risk assessment approaches that balance individual needs, dignity, and freedom with safety.

We all hear a lot about resilience these days, often focused on individual employees managing stress. But what about your organisation as a whole? How can you create a workplace that can weather any storm and come out stronger?

This month we will be talking about working at height. Working at any height can cause serious injury. A fall from a height of just one or two steps can cause serious injury.

•  What could go wrong
• What I need to do
• Guidelines to Employers

The hazards presented by Portable electrical appliances in your workplace should be assessed using normal risk assessment techniques. 

A robust maintenance program can be achieved by a combination of the three following actions:

1. Checks by the user
2. Visual inspection by a person appointed to do this
3. Combined inspection and tests by a competent person or contractor

Consent is a key part to bespoke, person–centred care delivery, without it, you simply aren’t providing a person-centred service. That said, consent is not always a straightforward process, there are other factors such as Mental Capacity to consider.

Evidencing consent

• For our service users
• How can we support staff to ensure that consent to care/support happens?
• What can providers do to monitor the evidence of consent?

This month Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Head of Health and Safety at AfterAthena, embarks on the journey that is ESG - Environmental, Social and Governance.  We can say it is a collective term for an organisation’s impact on the environment and society as well as how the organisation is governed in terms of leadership, pay, audits and internal control and processes. 

This episode looks at the upcoming changes to the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 which is due to come into force in Summer 2024. 

This episode looks specifically at moving and handling operations, as well as: 

• Hierarchy of control and how employers can reduce the risk
• Importance of a moving and handling policy and risk assessments
• Lifting equipment