Please note our Office will be closed from Friday 12th July to Friday 19th July inclusive. We will reopen on Monday 22nd July.
If your enquiry is urgent, please leave a message on our mobile no 075 9763 8419 and a Member of Staff will get back to you.
Wishing all our Clients a lovely Holiday.
Mental Health Awareness Week takes place 13-19 May 2019. The theme this year is Body Image - How we think and feel about our bodies
HBSC are proud to be supporting Mental Health Awareness Week.
More information is available at
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week
#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek
HB Safety spent the day with HMRC RFTU Unit yesterday equipping Staff with the skills to fight fires. The training covered both theory and practical elements. Staff spent the first part of the course in the classroom learning about how fires start, how they spread and how they are ignited. After a short break it was all hands on as Staff got to try out what they had learned and had the opportunity to extinguish live fires.
Fire Training is a legal requirement in order to comply with The Fire Safety Regulations (NI) 2010. If you would like any assistance with meeting your statutory obligations, please get in touch and we can offer assistance in all areas.
staff getting some hands on experience with Fire Extinguishers.
Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering (QCF)
This Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering (QCF) is a qualification aimed at caterers and other food handlers. The qualification is intended for learners already working in catering and those who are preparing to work in the industry.
Learners gaining this qualification will know that food safety is the responsibility of everyone involved in the storage, preparation, cooking service and handling of food. Its topics are regarded by the Foods Standards Agency as being important to maintaining good practice in the production of safe food.
Each student will also receive a handbook to assist your learning throughout the course.
HABC Level 2 Award in Food Safety Learning Objectives:
Firm grasp of the importance of food safety and knowledge of the systems and techniques
Understanding of how to control food safety risks
Food safety hazards
Food poisoning control
Temperature controls
Personal hygiene
Cleaning and disinfection
Food pests
Confidence and expertise to safely deliver quality food to customers
Assessment
Students are assessed by multiple-choice examination.
To Book your place please contact us by:-
Telephone 028 9754 2450
Email margaret@hbscltd.co.uk
We are delighted to announce that we have now been accredited as an approved Highfield Awarding Body for Compliance (HABC) Centre. This Accreditation allows us to deliver the National recognised qualification Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering and Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering (Refresher).
If you would like further details on any of these courses, please contact us.
Tonight we have the pleasure of training Staff in Greendale Day Nursery, part of the Clear Day Group of Nurseries. Staff are completing Level 2 Principles of Health and Safety which includes training on Risk Assessment, COSHH, Manual Handling, Accident Reporting, Fire Safety and H&S Law. A full night for everyone!!
A cleaning company has been fined tens of thousands of pounds after an employee was "seriously scalded" when they slipped and fell into a deep fat fryer while working at a hotel near Gatwick Airport.
A man working at Premier Inn, in Longbridge Way close to the airport's North Terminal, suffered serious burns when his foot slipped and went into the hot oil of a deep fat fryer as he was cleaning above it.
Employer MacDet Hygiene Cleaning Services Ltd was fined £37,500 and ordered to pay costs of £13,002.58 at Lewes Crown Court on August 5 for breaching health and safety rules.
The company had pleaded guilty to failing in its duty [to fulfil the requirements of] the Health and Safety at Work Act at a previous hearing.
The horrific injury was sustained in the kitchen of the hotel when two MacDet employees were tasked with cleaning the extractor system on the evening of September 23, 2014.
One of the employees was cleaning the canopy above the deep fat fryer and its ducting. He stood on one of the filters from the canopy, which was not designed for this purpose, and slipped. His foot went into the hot oil of the fryer causing serious burns to his foot and he then fell to the floor.
This incident was reported by the company, which resulted in an investigation by Crawley Borough Council.
HBSC are pledging our support for Fire Door Week ... Why?? Put simply Fire Doors save life and property.
The Fire Door campaign aims to engage and educate building owners and building users on how to use them properly.
Leading up to Fire Door Week and of course during Fire Door Week, HBSC will be sharing articles on Fire Door Safety and how you can get engaged, so keep checking back for more info!
Our first article is A Five Step Fire Door Check to help you make sure your doors are up to the job.
Shaftesbury Care Group Ltd, which runs Donwell House Care Home in Washington, was fined £380,000, plus costs of £29,222, at Newcastle Crown Court.
This was uncovered when Tyne & Wear Fire and Rescue Service investigated a blaze in the bedroom of a resident on Saturday 13th September 2014.
Officers discovered that fire doors had been wedged open when they should have been closed, and the company’s appointed contractor had condemned just under half of the building’s fire extinguishers.
Additionally, the company failed to carry out a number of actions identified in a fire risk assessment, including installing electronic devices, which would have allowed fire doors to be held open while enabling them to be quickly closed in an emergency.
During the fire, the bedroom door of an elderly resident’s room was wedged open. As a result, smoke and heat quickly filled the communal corridor and spread into a neighbouring bedroom, which also had its door wedged open.
Also, there was a delay in identifying the room where the fire had started, and as a result an elderly woman became trapped in her bedroom.
Staff were therefore unable to evacuate her from the building due to the amount of smoke and heat in the corridor.
Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus entered the building through a first floor window and rescued the pensioner. She was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead, for treatment.
This seemingly appears to be common faults highlighted on Fire Risk Assessments in Care Homes and were also some of the major fire safety breaches reported at the devastating Rosepark Care Home Fire back in January 2004 where 14 elderly residents died.
Assistant Chief Fire Officer for Community Safety Chris Lowther said: “The breaches found Donwell House care home put the lives of residents and staff at risk. We have around 5,000 interactions with businesses annually, where we work to educate and inform them of their responsibilities to comply with the law.”
“This means that there is seldom the need for prosecution. However, where lives are put at risk and the law has been broken, we will not hesitate to prosecute. This fine imposed by the judge is one of the most significant we are aware of for a case of this kind. It should serve as a warning to businesses, and especially care home operators, that failure to carry out their responsibilities regarding fire safety can and will have serious consequences.”
How can you avoid prosecution in your Care Home?
The answer to this question is simple if you make sure you have the right fire safety strategy in place for your premises.
Since the introduction of the Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Services Order (NI) 2006 and Fire Safety Regulations (NI) 2010, fire certificates are no longer issued.Instead onus falls onto the ‘responsible person’ to take appropriate action to prevent fire and protect building users in the event of fire.
The first step is to ensure your fire risk assessment is up to date which will make you aware of the plan of action you need to take in order to comply with the law.
Make sure you use a Fire Risk Assessor who is Third Party Accredited. This means they have been independently assessed and the quality of their work has been verified as being to a high standard. Hayley Burgess holds third party certificated accreditation with the Institution of Fire Engineers. Third Party Accreditation demonstrates competency and specifies that fire risk assessors have the required technical capabilities and our risk assessment staff meet appropriate standards.
If you need help with your fire safety strategy and want to ensure you comply with the law, contact one of our expert team today on 028 9754 2450
An investigation is underway into the death of a man who swallowed a bleach tablet at his nursing homeThe Balmoral Court Care Home resident was rushed to hospital but died, after ingesting the toxic cleaning chemical at the home in Byker, Newcastle on Thursday 4, August.
Balmoral Court, which is owned by Crown Care, specialises in the care of older people with dementia.
A spokesman for the home said: “We are very sad to confirm one of our residents at Balmoral Court has died in hospital after an incident at the home.
“A full investigation is under way and we are liaising closely with the family and the appropriate authorities.
“Until that investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further other than to say we are deeply shocked and saddened by this incident.
“We send our sincere condolences to the family.”
The nursing home’s latest inspection report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), published in March, gave the home an overall rating of ‘Requires improvement’ when CQC inspectors made an unannounced inspection last December.
CQC inspectors said in the report: “All reasonable steps had not been taken to reduce risks and make sure that people’s care was provided in a safe and hygienic environment.”
The CQC report also said staff were “mindful of keeping potentially harmful cleaning chemicals safe and locked away when not in use”.
credit care home.co.uk
Two days are never the same when doing Fire Risk Assessments.
Today we were carrying out a Fire Risk Assessment for a Client who are constructing a state of the art Dried Milk Powder Plant. The new plant represents an investment of £30 million and when finished will double the plant's capacity.
The new drying tower has a area of 30,000 sq ft and stands at over 37m high!!
Pic taken from the top floor of the new milk drying plant
Seven people have been injured after a rollercoaster crashed off the rails at a theme park in North Lanarkshire.
Six ambulances and six fire engines are at the M&D's park near Strathclude Park in Motherwell after being called at 15:37.
A number of specialist officers are also at the park, which has been evacuated.
An eyewitness said: "People were trapped upside down on the ride."
Emergency services said the incident was ongoing, but no further information was available.
Seven people hurt in rollercoaster crash at M&D's theme park
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-36635086
Credit Google images
According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), in 2014/15 over 1.2 million people were suffering from a work-related illness and 76,054 non-fatal injuries were reported. Although Britain has one of the best health and safety records worldwide, this figure shows there is still room for improvement to ensure staff are not put in danger at work. With the UK’s Health and Safety Week taking place from 20-24 June 2016, Carrie Earl, category manager at IronmongeryDirect, takes a look at reducing workplace hazards and suggests some useful tools to minimise the risk of injury.
Every year, 23 million working days are lost due to illness and injuries caused by today’s working conditions. Reducing potential hazards in the workplace is a must to protect employee well-being and ensure that businesses are legally compliant. Regardless of the industry a business is operating in, all organisations have a legal duty to ensure they have adequate health and safety procedures in place to keep their staff safe. Not only this, all staff have the right to feel safe and secure when they’re at work. Taking precautions to provide a safe environment for employees can dramatically reduce the risk of incidents occurring and should be a main priority for all companies.
HBSC Ltd are delighted to be exhibiting at the Early Years International Conference and AGM in Lough Erne Resort, Enniskillen.
We have special discounts available over the course of the next two days. We are looking forward to seeing you all there!
We are delighted to have been recognised in the latest Institution of Fire Engineer's Journal for firstly achieving inclusion on the IFE's Fire Risk Assessors Register (Life Safety) and secondly achieving 'Member Grade' if The IFE.
Mental Health Awareness Week takes place from the 16th - 22nd May 2016 with the theme of Relationships.
The importance of relationships and how fundamental they are to our health and wellbeing is often forgotten. We cannot flourish as individuals and communities without them, infact they are as vital as better established lifestyle factors such as eating well, exercising more and stopping smoking.
This year mental health.org.uk are asking people to make a relationship resolution to assess how much time we actively commit to building and maintaining good relationships and to ask whether we can invest more in being present with and listening to friends, family and colleagues.
If you would like to know more about Mental Health Awareness please follow the link below
www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week
Rehab 4 Alcoholism offers a free helpline and intervention service for people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. Tel: 0345 222 3509 Website: http://www.rehab4alcoholism.com
At this year’s Balmoral Show, the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) has joined forces with the Farm Families Health Checks Programme and Rural Support to highlight important health and safety issues facing the farming community.
The joint stand will offer a wide range of information and advice for farmers, and their families, to help them stay safe and healthy on the farm.
HSENI will focus on farm safety relating to the ongoing Stop and Think SAFE campaign, including working at height, and will run practical demonstrations on Quad bike safety and chainsaw maintenance.
Representatives from The Northern Ireland Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) Branch will also be jointly manning the stand, so please call over for advice and information on farm safety.
McGoldrick Enterprises Ltd, trading as Maine Private Nursing Home, was today fined £10,000 plus costs of £8,279 at Antrim Crown Court for health and safety failings which led to the death of a 51 year old resident.
Today’s sentencing comes after a Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) investigation about the tragic death in April 2013 of Mary Dowds at her nursing home in Randalstown Co. Antrim.
Ms Dowds, who had physical and learning difficulties, was placed in a care chair with the use of a lap-belt. Mary was then left in her room unattended and inadequately observed, and was later found strangled by a poorly adjusted seat restraint as a result of slipping from her chair.
Speaking after today’s sentencing Kevin Campbell, an inspector with HSENI’s Major Investigation Team said:
'Today our thoughts are with the family of Mary Dowds, whose death could have been easily avoided if the available information about the dangers from incorrectly fitted or adjusted seat restraints had been acted upon.
'Staff should also have been properly trained to make sure that restraints were fit for purpose, suitable for each individual resident, and adequately fitted and adjusted.
'In addition, a system of supervision should have been put in place to monitor each resident based on their needs, whether sleeping or awake. In this case, where Mary was left alone in a room, in a chair facing away from the doorway, a simple audio check was clearly not enough.'
We will be closed on May Day Bank Holiday, 2nd May. The office will be open again on Tuesday 3rd May.
Wishing all our Customers Happy May Day
Tuesday 26th April saw Group Maintenance Personnel from The Care Circle Group get together for some Health & Safety training.
Training was held at Slemish Private Nursing Home. Health & Safety Consultant, Hayley Burgess of HBSC Ltd facilitated the training and commented “The men were keen to get to grips with the more practical aspects of the training. It is encouraging to see employees eager to keep up to date with their continued professional development and thus helping to ensure a safer environment for all to work in”.
The one day course covered H & S Law Policy, Accident/Incident Reporting, First Aid, Personal Protective Equipment, Fire Evacuation procedures, COSHH and Manual Handling. Training was scored highly on participant feedback questionnaires and it also gave opportunity for maintenance personnel to share ideas for better work practices.
We hope you all had a great day, we certainly did!
Care Circle Group are an award-winning provider of quality care, delivered within beautiful, homely environments.
Care Circle Homes are regarded as Homes of Choice in their respective locations in Northern Ireland and provide comprehensive nursing, residential and dementia care to residents across the spectrum of care need.
