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Mind your backs.
Most occupations involve lifting and handling to some extent and around 80% of the UK population will suffer from a serious back pain at some point in their life.
Guy Littlemore is a City & Guilds certified manual handling trainer who can run a course to help your company meet their legal compliance and avoid possible pain and ongoing back problems from an employee’s perspective.
Many manual handling injuries build up over a period, rather than being caused by a single incident, but a single incident can be the straw that breaks a person’s back! We tend to abuse our backs by over-reaching to get equipment cases out of vehicles, by carrying heavy loads and by adopting a bad posture while operating equipment.
There is no such thing as a completely ‘safe’ manual handling operation, but by adopting some of the suggestions below your employees will reduce the risk of a back injury and minimise the need for a trip to the chiropractor.
- Learn about good handling & lifting techniques
- Do not attempting to lift loads beyond your physical capability
- Use mechanical aids such as trolleys, winches etc.
- Distribute loads so they are easier to carry
- Use team handling
- Put the weight of the case on the outside
- Take into account peoples age, fitness, recent illness etc. and don’t just think they are trying to get out of lugging the cases around.
- Think about the environment is it wet, are there loads of stairs?
- When operating equipment think about your posture and avoid excessive bending, arching and twisting of the back
It is all the obvious stuff; we just need to put it into practice and start protecting our backs. Medical professionals agree that if you suffer from back pain the best advice is to stay active. Your back is designed for movement; a lot of movement and having strong muscles and tendons to support the spine is the answer.
Risk Assessments
Do you get them? Do you read them? Do they mean anything to you?
A common mistake of risk assessments is to focus too much on “going though the motions” to meet legal obligations, rather than a system of work to reduce hazards & risks to workers. In my opinion there are many production departments who complete a risk assessment for a shoot that is hardly worth the paper it is written on; many are written without a recce… because of financial constraints – or laziness – and even if a recce has been done many producer/directors are not great at properly assessing hazards.
Even today after so much work has been done on health and safety training, many production staff aren’t fully aware of their health and safety responsibilities and it has to be said that the same is true of many camera crews. Many crews will admit that they just want to get on and do their job & let someone else worry about the safety of the shoot. So be pro-active rather than reactive to workplace hazards and have a clear understanding and commitment to health & safety.
Ideally a risk assessment should be a “useful” not complicated document. Maybe it should be called “guidance safety information” rather than risk assessment. Every production and self employed person is legally required to make a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of their workplace risks.
What is “suitable and sufficient”?
It is identifying things that could go wrong at work …not the trivia just significant risks that may cause injury or harm. Enables you or the production to identify and prioritise the measures needed for safe working practices. Covers all possible areas of your work as a cameraman…. and you never know what production will throw at you sometimes ..so be prepared & be aware!
My feeling about risk analysis is that hazards should be managed by giving individuals more awareness & responsibility to manage the risks on location. “Whose risk is it anyway?” not the producer who is sitting in their office, while you are working a 12 hour day covering some event, with decision-making which is constantly changing….it is you who is it risk!
So you need to make the production team understand that what you believe is a safe method of working, is the way forward. Not what the tick boxes on a sheet of paper say! But that does mean you need to have a good knowledge of H & S. We all have the ability to detect & prevent hazards, but some people ignore or overlook situations which might be hazardous. Our perception of what is dangerous to us as an individual, is governed by our expectations, knowledge or education, understanding or a moral view of that situation. The potential for creating hazardous situations is increased when a team of people interact and there is the possibility of two or more people working with slightly different views of what may be a perceived risk. So a cameraman’s perception of risk, my be different to a directors, or a sound recordist. So risk is a judgement call by individuals or productions.
Assessing a hazard and the risk of anyone getting injured may be about stating the obvious, but it does raise awareness of unsafe acts and conditions. Most accidents are a combination of unsafe acts and unsafe conditions, but it is people – not things – that cause accidents (although the things often get the blame!)
If you are asked to carry out a risk assessment, make sure you have had suitable and sufficient training to identify hazards in your work, no matter how experienced you are as a cameraman.
Portable Appliance Testing (PAT)
 There are a number of reasons why electrical equipment should be checked, inspected and tested on a regular basis:
- To minimise the risk of fire and electrical injury caused by electrical appliances
- To satisfy your insurance company
- To comply with the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974
- To comply with Electricity at Work Regulations 1989
- To comply with the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations
- To comply with the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations
- As part of a companies fire risk assessment compliance
The Electricity at Work Regulations place a legal responsibility on employers, employees and self-employed persons to comply with the regulations and to take reasonably practicable steps to ensure that no danger results from the use of electrical equipment.
Lighting equipment, mains monitors, camera power mains units, battery chargers, extension cables and every other bit of 240v mains electrical kit camera crews use, must be
- Checked by the user
- Have a formal visual inspection
- Have a combined inspection and testing schedule
User checks are simply a general check of the equipment for any obvious defects by the people who are using it. No dismantling of the equipment is necessary, it is just about noticing if there is anything wrong, before you use it in accordance with the manufacturers instructions.
Is there any damage to the electrical plug, connector or the equipment casing?
Is the cable flex free from cuts or cracks?
Is the cable securely anchored at the equipment and the plug?
Are any switches or controls broken, missing or loose?
Are there any signs of electrical overheating?
If there are any serous defects the equipment should not be used and it must be withdrawn from use and sent for repair.
Driving
I think the most dangerous challenge to camera crews is to drive home along the motorway, after a 10 or 12 hour day. It is estimated that one in three crashes involve a vehicle being driven for work purposes.
3,172 people were killed on Britain’s roads in 2006
A further 28,673 people were seriously injured in road crashes in 2006. 300 people are killed each year as a result of a driver falling asleep at the wheel.
Most police forces treat every road traffic collision where there has been a fatality as a “murder scene”. Their investigations not only focus on the circumstances of the accident but also the reasons why it happened. If the driver was driving as part of their work, either in a company car or privately-owned car, then the employer will be asked to provide evidence supporting their “duty of care” to the driver. So the “lack of duty of care” & liability can be placed on the employer…. or you as a contractor or self employed person.
In April 2003, the Court of Appeal listed certain aggravating factors, any of which could lead to a custodial sentence for causing death by dangerous driving.
One of the factors was …driving whilst deprived of sleep or rest.
Car insurance policies will not pay out (or at least may counter sue) if insurers believe there has been contributory negligence in relation to road traffic accidents occurring though fatigue after an excessive working day.
Be sensible! Do not try to complete a journey when you are tired…. sleep is the only cure for tiredness. Take a nap of about 15-20 minutes, or plan an overnight stay.
First Aid
First aid is an important part of everyday life at home and at work. Everyone should be able to put a plaster on a minor cut, but could you administer basic care to a person in shock or to someone with a major bleed?
Every self-employed person and every employer has a duty to make provision for first aid in their workplace, as detailed in The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981.
First aid should be available at all times when people are at work and even when travelling to & from locations; so have a first aid box in your car.
All business and the self-employed are required to ensure that they can provide first aid while at work. Emergencies can happen at any time and in any place. When emergencies do happen someone needs to know what to do and the correct procedures to follow. Ask the production department who the first aid person is, if it is not written on the call sheet… or you can become a first aider.
A first aid course can be great fun especially if you are into kissing rubber dolls. It is only 4 days at your local college or training company to complete the HSE First Aid at Work certificate and it will certainly add another element to your CV. Production departments need to have first aiders on the team, especially when filming on location, to make their production compliant with the regulations. They may well be interested to know you have a first aid qualification.
It is important to understand that first aid has its limitations and does not take the place of professional medical treatment.
Everyone knows that you dial 999 in the UK for emergency assistance, however you can also use 112 in the UK & anywhere in the European Community. Another feature of the 112 system is that it can be dialled from anywhere in the world with GSM mobile coverage and is than automatically translated to that country’s emergency number.
www.hse.gov.uk/firstaid/
www.redcross.org.uk
www.sja.org.uk
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