THE Health and Safety Executive (HSE) gave Covid-19 a free pass to workplace transmission by abandoning its own hazard classification system, downplaying the risks and embarking on a “near-complete enforcement holiday”, according to a new report.
Professor Rory O’Neill, from the University of Liverpool, said the expert committee advising HSE and the Government assigned Covid-19 to “Hazard Group 3”, which under the regulator’s enforcement management model (EMM) should have come with an automatic “serious health effects” descriptor.
However, as the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) system assumes that workplace pathogen risks are limited to hospitals or labs, Covid-19 did not fit the model and the HSE abandoned the system and downgraded the virus to the lower “significant health effects” descriptor.
O’Neill, who also edits Hazards magazine, said this meant the EMM did not take sufficient account of the rapid spread of Covid-19 through a range of essential jobs, or the impact of millions of infections nationwide on workplace infection rates and fatalities.
“As Covid-19 outbreaks raced through thousands of workplaces, HSE put its enforcement role on hold,” he said.
“This reflects a structural flaw in HSE’s classification system, incapable currently of dealing with the impact of a pandemic in the workplace or high levels of community and workplace transmission.
“The model assumes the risks are primarily in healthcare and labs, but Covid-19 affects a broad range of sectors.”
O’Neill said the HSE had “largely abandoned transparency” on its Covid-19 policy development and priorities and had held no open board meetings, nor published agendas, minutes or papers for any of them.
He added: “When Hazards obtained minutes of its closed board meetings through freedom of information requests, HSE redacted most of the content.”
However, the HSE hit back, saying it had demonstrated over the past year that making workplaces Covid-secure was an “organisational priority”.
A spokesperson said: “Since the start of the pandemic HSE has carried over 138,000 Covid-19 spot checks and responded to over 20,000 concerns.
“Workplace checks daily averages have risen from 700 in November 2020 to now over 2000 checks a day and the number is rising constantly.
“Spot checks have been targeted in those industries where workers are most likely to be vulnerable to transmission risks.”
They added: “HSE’s evidence is that more than 90% of the businesses checked have the right precautions in place or are willing to make necessary changes promptly and without the need for enforcement notices.”
Professor Andrew Watterson, an occupational health expert from the University of Stirling, told The National the analysis revealed multiple failures within the regulator and major problems with Covid disease recognition and risk assessment procedures.
He said: “Workplace health and safety is reserved to Westminster but a new Scottish Government should urgently take note of the deficiencies in HSE policy and organisation exposed by this report.
“It should look at ensuring workplace health and safety is not marginalised in the future.
“It should improve effective co-ordination between bodies like HSE, local authorities and public health with health and safety taking the lead investigating workplace disease outbreak.”
Watterson added: “Worker health is a public health issue and failures to control workplace diseases have direct and indirect effects on wider communities.”
“It should also pass measures to improve the disease recognition and industrial disease compensation through bills such as the proposed Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill.”
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