World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2019 – Reducing Accidents in the Workplace

a safe and healthy future of work poster

World Day for Safety and Health at Work is an annual international campaign held by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and this year’s event takes places on the 28th April 2019.

The ILO is one of the oldest UN agencies and this year celebrates its 100th anniversary. This year’s World Day for Safety and Health aims to highlight how safety and health in the workplace has improved in the last 100 years whilst continuing to promote safe and healthy workplace practices worldwide.

Although the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the main body within the UK that protects workers health and safety, the UK is a founding member of the ILO so therefore encourages businesses to support this global day each year. Businesses can support the event by considering how they can improve health and safety and manage risks in their own workplace. One way that this can be achieved is by taking steps to reduce workplace accidents.

Common workplace accidents in the UK

When people think about workplace accidents occurring, people tend to think of accidents happening in high risk industries such as construction and manufacturing. However, accidents can happen anywhere in any industry.

According to a recent report by the HSE, 555,000 injuries occurred in workplaces in 2018 and 30.7 million working days were lost due to work related illnesses and injuries. The latest figures report that the most common accident kind is slips and trips causing 40% of all reported injuries. Although this percentage is coming down, there are still straightforward measures that businesses can take to prevent this common accident from happening.

Simple steps to prevent slips and trips

Under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, businesses have a duty of care to ensure that risks are minimised, and that staff and visitors are protected and safe. To minimise risks, employers can take simple steps to ensure floors are safe so that slips and trips can be prevented in the workplace.

Actions include:

• Start by conducting a full risk assessment. Although this may seem like a big paperwork exercise, a risk assessment can easily identify and highlight where your business can control risks in the workplace.

• Identify whether you have good quality entrance mats in your business to ensure that rain water does not get brought into your premises.

• Depending on your business, spillages may occur so ensure these are cleaned up quickly and efficiently.

• Ensure floors are kept dry and clean, using the correct cleaning materials for the type of floor you have in your business.

• Keep entrances and walkways clear from any obstructions.

Effective floorcare solutions for a safer workplace

As highlighted, most slips are caused by wet and unclean floors meaning one of the easiest ways to prevent slips and trips is by ensuring you have effective floorcare solutions in your business. Taking floorcare seriously in your business is essential for health and safety but it can save your business money as the largest amount of a business’ cleaning budget is spent on maintaining clean floors.

Citron Hygiene can help your business support World Day for Safety and Health at Work by providing floorcare solutions such as entrance mats and floorcare consumables that can help stop floors from becoming wet and dirty.

Variety of commercial mats for any situation

Citron Hygiene have a wide range of different commercial door mats in various shapes and sizes to ensure your business can have effective mats in place no matter your requirement. All our entrance mats are effective in stopping dirt and moisture being brought into your premises, helping to prevent any accidents from happening and can also help present a positive image of your business.

However, it’s not just entrance areas that could benefit from commercial mats. Other high risk areas including in front of drinks vending machines, water coolers and photocopiers could benefit from effective floorcare solutions. Citron Hygiene’s semi-circle office mats are the perfect solution to protect against drips and spillages and can reduce slips and trips in the workplace.

Floorcare consumables for safe floors

At this time of year, weather can be unpredictable in the UK and April Showers are a common occurrencethath could lead to staff and visitors bringing dirt and moisture into your premises.

Choose the right managed floorcare solutions

Citron Hygiene’s professional local hygiene technicians can help your business have the right floorcare solutions in place to reduce slips and trips. We will help you work out what floorcare you need so your premises can be kept clean and safe.

All our mats are managed by our lift and lay service meaning that mats will be changed on a regular basis for new mats to ensure mats are always effective at trapping dirt and moisture.

If you are interested in finding more information out about our mats and floorcare consumables and how you can create a safer workplace, feel free to contact us via our enquiry form or call 08000 66 55 52.

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