Day 127 - 23 May 95 - Page 66
1 the others as well.
2
3 Q. That is what I was going to ask you next. Do you see
4 implications in your analysis of the RIDDOR figures for
5 reductions or preventative measures in relation to the
6 other 100?
7 A. Yes, yes, we do and, in fact, one thing we have
8 proposed for the next stage of accident monitoring is to
9 start monitoring any accident where an employee is off
10 work, so that will take us to the next stage, if you like,
11 that they are not reportable but they might be off for a
12 day or so, and can we look at those and, therefore, can we
13 increase our learning, just bearing in mind how quickly the
14 Company is expanding all of the time and how much is
15 manageable.
16
17 Q. Finally, the lost topic, Mrs. Barnes, the HSE Report of
18 April 1992, I think it was, which you will find at tab 55
19 in the same file ----
20
21 MR. BELL: It occurs to me that where you have something like,
22 looking at the RIDDOR accidents in 1993, 400 altogether
23 with many, many thousands of employees, you do not have to
24 have many more accidents to increase the percentage
25 twofold; suppose you have 20 accidents of a certain kind --
26 I mean, you fall from a height on sheet 4 would be
27 something like about seven falls, one per cent being four
28 falls?
29 A. Yes.
30
31 Q. So it would be six or seven falls?
32 A. They are very small numbers.
33
34 Q. So that may not be the best to choose because it is a very
35 small percentage, but manual handling, for instance, would
36 be something like 45 incidents, reportable ones, of
37 course. There may have been many others which did not
38 merit reporting. So, it might be statistically totally
39 insignificant that the next year you have 20 more or 20
40 less manual handling when you are considering the numbers
41 of ---
42 A. Yes.
43
44 Q. -- employees you have?
45 A. This is why I feel it is important that over-time we
46 build up a picture of the trends as opposed to just looking
47 at one year on year. This report was prepared for a
48 specific reason which was after Thomas -----
49
50 Q. I can see, despite the tentative comment I have made, that
51 there is a value in monitoring it anyway, because if you do
52 not do any monitoring, all sorts of things could be
53 happening without your actually noticing, but you do not
54 need very many more accidents in number in order to change
55 the percentage really quite radically?
56 A. Yes, you are right, and it might be that just one of
57 those accidents is one that is very concerning. For
58 example, we had one where a tailgate failed on the back of
59 a delivery vehicle and an oil cage fell.
60
