Editorial

Safe working in the wind energy sector

June 2014
Sheila Pantry OBE

Wind energy is a growing sector, but how safe are its workers? Harmful substances and working at height are examples of risks in this sector that can be intensified by difficult conditions, such as extreme weather. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is committed to making Europe a safer, healthier and more productive place to work and their recent report provides detailed information about OSH risks and their prevention throughout the various wind turbine life cycle stages and also considers future challenges that the sector needs to address. It is supported by an e-fact giving an overview of the issues and a checklist that identifies common hazards and preventive measures for both onshore and offshore wind farm installations. Read the publications:

And find more on safe working in the wind energy sector from worldwide sources and keep up-to-date with the latest Safety, Health and Fire information at Work by using OSH UPDATE + FIRE www.oshupdate.com arguably the largest electronic collection of safety, health and fire information in the world, that has 26 databases containing over 1,114,000 records including over 90,000 full text documents. Many people, organisations, inspectors, information specialists, students and lecturers in many parts of the world are finding OSH UPDATE + FIRE an essential tool in their daily work. User friendly and certainly budget friendly!

For a 15 DAY FREE NO OBLIGATION TRIAL contact: Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd, email: sp@sheilapantry.com or fill in the Interest Form www.sheilapantry.com/interest.html

FOCUS

This month’s OSHWORLD FOCUS Preventing Occupational Disease highlights the fact that occupational diseases cause huge suffering and loss in the world of work. While much progress has been made in addressing the challenges of occupational diseases, there is an urgent need to strengthen the capacity for their prevention in national occupational safety and health (OSH) systems.

OSHWORLD – your portal to some of the best OSH web sites in the world

It is always good to review health, safety, chemical, fire and environment procedures on a regular basis. It is also important that the practices and systems in the workplace are constantly reviewed and if necessary, improved. This review may also indicate training requirements and updates and re-thinking how systems and services can be improved. This is where the free-of-charge OSHWORLD can help you.

In these days of tighter budgets perhaps training may be put on the “back-burner” – but think again how you can keep up with the latest techniques and training opportunities. So look at the latest additions to the Diary of Events and you will see plans have been made already worldwide up to the end of 2015 and beyond to have training courses, symposiums and conferences in many places in the world on a wide range of subjects.

Remember that even if you cannot attend these many events, speakers and organisers are often willing to share their knowledge. Look at the details – where possible, we add in the web sites of these events so you can request further information. And do let me know if you are organising any OSHE events so that I can add them to the Diary.

Resources

In addition to the above we hope that you find the information in OSHWORLD useful in your daily work. Globally there are continually new titles, news items, new products so remember to look at the News to find the latest information from a number of worldwide sources.

Use OSHWORLD as your portal to many hundreds of validated and authoritative web sites that you can find in the Country and Subject links we offer. New subject topics are constantly brought together on web sites, e.g. nanotechnology and the workplace.

Most information services have a reference shelf where you can quickly check the reference sources – so OSHWORLD brings you a collection of Reference sources and also teaches you how to Search the Internet.

Visit the various Bookshops to order any new document as they are being published. Many of these Bookshops have a constant stream of new titles available.

Please send any suggestions or comments about OSHWORLD – your portal to validated and authoritative information. Remember also to look at our other really useful sites – www.sheilapantry.com and why not make a free entry about your company’s products in www.shebuyersguide.com.

Don’t forget to learn from history see www.historyofosh.org.uk

Don’t work harder – work smarter! Be ahead of the game.

Well – did you have a zero accident, incident-free and healthy year in 2013 in your workplace? Some would argue that this is not possible! But keep on trying again in 2014!

And do continue to make plans for your campaigns for 2014 and beyond!