Mary Boughton welcomed members to the first ever Health and Safety fringe event. Setting the scene for health and safety legislation in the UK.

Chris Ward, Principle External Relationships Manager for Wales, from the HSE then gave a presentation on what drives Health and Safety in the UK. He spoke about the communications gap between HSE and the way people worked and what they thought about what they were doing in their everyday lives. He also asked the audience to consider the motivations for small businesses to get Health and Safety right, whether this was financial in case they were sued or because they care for their employees and are motivated morally.  The fire at Longsfield cost businesses in the area around £700million and yet no one was hurt.

Chris highlighted that the best way to make work environments safe was to ask your workers how they thought you could make their environment a safer place to work. His talk was highlighted with a number of videos.

Chris then joined a panel of health and safety experts, Don Garman, and Clare Haddow to answer members' questions.

Questions ranged from whether there should be accreditation for assessors to ensure that only qualified people gave H&S advice to 14 – 19 year olds and whether H&S requirements in different areas was stopping them from being in the work place.

Members also got a very satisfying answer to the question ‘how is it the members' responsibility when staff won't wear protective clothing?' Don Garman explained that if the business owner believes that the job requires protective clothing and the employee refuses, then the employer should stop the employee from working.