Provision and the use of work equipment regulations (PUWER) Case Study

1. Introduction - PUWER Regulations: Ensuring Safety in UK Construction

The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations of 1998, is also addressed as PUWER. It is the set of regulations that were put into effect on December 5th of 1998. PUWER are intended to safeguard employees from the highly unsafe tools and machinery as well as other work equipment (Cooper, 2019). The following report will discuss UK health and Safety Legislation, while highlighting its importance and critically analysing its impact on the UK construction industry.

2. UK Health and Safety Legislation/Regulation

Any risk to people’s health and safety caused by the tools that they use at the workplace to work must be reduced or eliminated, according to the guidelines of PUWER. The work tools and machinery is maintained in a safe condition that is appropriate for its intended use and safe for use, to put it another way (Marker and Turner, 2021). In order to manage the health and safety of their employees, employers must also adhere to laws and regulatory regulations and carry out a risk assessment of the risk specific to their workplace. There are no specific obligations placed on employees by PUWER.

The PUWER obligations to employers

• Ensuring that working tools are suitable for its intended use and are put to use in the circumstances and for the objectives for which it was intended.
• Setting any machinery or fixed company equipment properly, taking all necessary safety precautions.
• Establishing a safe working environment for the maintenance and operation of equipment.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, which were introduced in 1999, enhanced the Health and Safety Act of 1974 (Caponecchia, 2021). They are applicable to all job activities and specify what steps businesses must take to ensure health and safety. The rules and regulations compel both employers and employees to maintain a safe and healthy workplace.

Employers must specifically comply with these requirements

• Risk assessment can be used to manage risk within the workplace.
• They must take essential steps required to eliminate or reduce the risk in the workplace.
• They must create a policy for health and safety.

Employees must also report any work risk or weakness in organisation’s safety protocols to anybody in charge of health and safety including their employer.

3. Importance of the Health & Safety Legislation/Regulation

The purpose of the PUWER standards is to guarantee a secure working environment for everyone who uses and operates machinery and equipment, including employees, owners, contractors, dealers, and everybody else who might have contact to such things at a workplace.

• Recognising and recording potential risks
• One must consider the potential harm generated by the conclusions of a risk calculation in direction to decide the crucial steps to decrease or eliminate these risks.
• Deciding to take a different course of action to reduce or eliminate risks.

The benefits of Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations exceed any potential costs or obligations for business owners in terms of engagement and production (Lucrezia, 2021). Company owners need to understand how creating a positive company culture relies on a safe and healthy workplace.

The following are the importance of health and safety regulations

• An organisation workplace can be more productive and effective if they take essential steps to protect their employees, which will also reduce the rate of employee’s absences.
• It minimises the legal liabilities.
• If the amount of lost time due to illness and accidents is decreased, the business organisation will experience less interruption and spend less money.

4. Critically Analysing the Impacts of the Legislation/Regulation on the Performance of the UK Construction Industry

In the construction and building industry, health and safety are of utmost importance. As it is regarded that it is a highly exposed industry when it comes to workplace accidents, it has long been considered as being of utmost importance.

In order to distinguish a few in the continuously shifting industrial environment, building and construction sites usually need workers to work on heights, manage heavy loads, operate massive machinery, and manage raw resources (Johnstone and Hallberg, 2020). By having PUWER health and safety standards in place and also by making sure that employees are aware of them, risk associated with these working circumstances can be significantly reduced in construction industry.

There are numerous risks which might develop on a construction site if precautions of Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 have never been followed (Farag, 2022). This is one more reason why it is important that the appropriate precautions of Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 are not just put in place, as well as maintained by everyone working on the site. These risks can affect observer about as easily as they affect the workers in the construction area. However, even in the absence of PUWER health and safety standard, the construction industry can also get impacted of all such risks.

The company might experience considerable productivity and man hour losses that would have a negative impact on the bottom line (Johnstone and Hallberg, 2020). If PUWER health and safety procedures are really not followed, accidents and injuries are much more likely to take place. As a result, it reduces the number of hours these workers spend at work on the construction site, therefore it lowers productivity and decreases the revenue of the construction sector.

There are additional problems experienced from a legal perspective. A construction industry faces the possibility of breaking the law and being charged by the Health and Safety Executives by failing to develop and maintain the essential Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requirements (Tung, 2021). There may be more serious issues if a company do not follow PUWER's rules. The business might have to stop operating or deal with legal action from impacted workers.

Conclusion

According to the report, PUWER are intended to safeguard employees from the highly unsafe tools and machinery as well as other work equipment. In order to manage the health and safety of their employees, employers must also adhere to laws and regulatory regulations and carry out a risk assessment of the risk specific to their workplace. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 are applicable to all job activities and specify what steps businesses must take to ensure health and safety. Workers are legally allowed to demand a secure and healthy operational environment.

References

Caponecchia, C., 2021. Risk Management: Bullying as a Workplace Health and Safety Hazard. Dignity and Inclusion at Work, pp.3-27.

Cooper, D.A., 2019, September. Accessible Goods Only Lifts (AGOLS): The Law & Levels of Safety. In 10th Symposium on Lift and Escalator Technologies (Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 17-22).

Farag, R., 2022. Provincial Cannabis Legislation, Regulation, and Licensing: Its Effectiveness and Impacts on Municipalities in Ontario.

Johnstone, L. and Hallberg, P., 2020. ISO 14001 adoption and environmental performance in small to medium sized enterprises. Journal of environmental management, 266, p.110592.

Lucrezia, M., 2021. Gambling Advertising between Primary Legislation, Regulation and the Role of Public Institutions: The Debate on Policies and Open Questions. L'industria, (2), pp.275-302.

Marker, B. and Turner, A.K., 2021. Legislation, Regulation, and Management. Applied Multidimensional Geological Modeling: Informing sustainable human interactions with the shallow subsurface, pp.35-68.

Salguero-Caparrós, F., Pardo-Ferreira, M.D.C., Martínez-Rojas, M. and Rubio-Romero, J.C., 2020. Management of legal compliance in occupational health and safety. A literature review. Safety science, 121, pp.111-118.

Tung, A.W.J., 2021. An Exploration of Stakeholder Impacts on the Decommissioning of Offshore Oil and Gas Facilities–The Design, Development, and Analysis of Stakeholder Oriented Critical Paths for United Kingdom and Australia (Doctoral dissertation, Curtin University).