Nobody should be injured or killed at work, and under the HSWA employers have a responsibility to protect workers and others from risk to their health and safety. Health and safety concerns at work can include trip hazards, stress, unsafe building structures, dangerous substances, risk of violence and abuse, extreme temperatures, poor air quality, and much more.
Trade unions, such as the PDA Union, have a key role to play in maintaining health and safety, not just in campaigning for the legislation in the first place, but by monitoring and taking action to remove workplace risks.
For example, at Boots there is a formal recognition of the PDA and a team of pharmacists who are PDA Representatives that have been trained on the subject. Those reps undertake health and safety visits which can be routine to see if everything is ok, or in response to an accident report or colleague concern. Boots and the PDA work together constructively for everyone’s benefit on this issue. The aim of health and safety visits is not to blame or report anyone, but to offer support. At the end of a visit, the reps leave an agreed action plan on what to do next. This could be a few small fixes or something they could help to speed the process along, for instance ,a maintenance issue that may have had problems getting looked at or progressed.
PDA Education provides health and safety training for PDA Workplace Reps and the next course is being held at the General Federation of Trade Unions’ (GFTU) facility in September. This course is for all PDA Reps who have completed the PDA Reps Induction online. All workplace reps should complete this training. Regional committee members, members of the PDA’s Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) committees, and student reps are also welcome to attend.
The PDA has recently seen an increase in pharmacists seeking support after being injured by faulty shelving or flooring in some community pharmacies. While the PDA can help members to seek compensation in such situations, it would be far better for all involved if businesses maintained their premises to safe standards to avoid the incidents occurring.
The PDA also supports the call to the new government from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) for a higher standard of health and safety protection than in previous generations.
The TUC is calling for the government to:
- Restore adequate funding to the Health and Safety Executive
- Take action to speed up the removal of asbestos from all workplaces
- Protect the role of trade union health and safety reps and allow unions to enter and organise workplaces that lack union representation
- Foster a culture of positive industrial relations so that employers and workers both benefit from a collaborative approach to improving health and safety.
TUC General Secretary, Paul Nowak said about the HSWA’s 50th anniversary, “The Act made it a duty for every employer to protect the health and safety of staff. Thousands of lives have been saved since then. It shows how valuable government can be when put at the service of working people.
All deaths, injuries, and illnesses at work are preventable. But workplace inspections and prosecutions have plummeted because of Conservative cuts. And more than a hundred people died from work-related injuries last year.
We need fresh funding and fresh thinking. Government, unions and employers must work together to raise workplace safety to the next level. Every worker deserves to be safe, wherever they work and whatever they do.”
PDA Union Director, Paul Day said, “Believing that every pharmacist can return home safely from each shift, should be among the most basic of reasonable expectations by the profession and their families.
We must never underestimate the importance of having effective health and safety standards that are communicated, understood, implemented and enforced in every pharmacy workplace.
A safe and healthy workplace is ultimately better for patients, employers and the NHS too.”
Learn more
- Trade unions mark 50 years of life-saving legislation
- Health and Safety Reps – Part One
- PDA issues guidance on keeping safe and well while working in hot weather
- NHS England publish information about RAAC in buildings
- It’s Time to Address Stress: Action plan
- PDA calls for an end to violence in pharmacy
- Workers Memorial Day 2023
Not yet a PDA member?
If you have not yet joined the PDA, we encourage you to join today and ask your colleagues to do the same.
Membership is FREE to pharmacy students, trainee pharmacists, and for the first three months of being newly qualified.
Read about our key member benefits here.