As the head of health, safety and security at a bank I used to get asked frequently what our biggest health and safety issues were (usually by directors!). I replied that in terms of prevalence it would be workstation usage or stress as it affected everyone. However in terms of impact without a doubt it was a kidnap or hostage situation. The news last night that the staff at a branch of Barclays were being held hostage by a raider made my blood run cold. Thankfully the incident seems to have ended peacfully without harm. Physical harm that is. The ...

A flying visit to University of Bristol to present at a workshop run by the higher education wellbeing project. Hot on the heels of the government's emergency budget the conversation was inevitably dominated by what it will mean for the sector. A HEFCE representative presented a range of scenarios of what this might mean to staff headcount. All will become clear when the government spending review is published in October along side, perhaps more significantly and controversially (if you're a Lib Dem!), Lord Browne's review of student fees. This is widely expected to increase the present cap on student tuition ...

I was delighted to be asked give the opening address at a conference on resilience run here at Leeds Met. The conference attracted over a 100 guests, and had an interesting agenda looking at physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. I was only sorry I couldn't spend longer taking in more of the conference sessions. You can view the text of my conference address here.

I've spent the day writing award submissions, all of which seem to have deadlines in the next week or so. Thankfully the categories are pretty similar so a lot of the content can be re-used. Our work at Leeds Met in the last 12-18 months has been about adopting a broad approach to staff and student wellbeing, and in particular the development of our wellbeing website.  So naturally i'm looking at occupational health and innovation type categories. So far i'm considering SHP/IOSH awards, Occupational Health Awards and the prestigious National Business Awards. Writing a submission in itself can be very rewarding. ...

The government's announcement that they are going to review health and safety law will come as no surprise to those who followed the Tories views on this in opposition. Lord Young says his review will look at the  'application and perception' of UK health and safety law, and at face value that looks commendable. Most if not all of the the health and safety practitioners I talk to are horrified at the media's portrayal of 'elf n safety, a situation not helped by the minority of cases where actions taken are completely disproportionate to the risk. A word of caution though, ...

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the smoking ban has had a positive effect on health, but I did find the manner and speed of the improvement somewhat unexpected. The Bath study conducted for DoH (read more here) found there had been 1200 fewer hospital admissions for heart attacks in the 12 months after the ban was introduced - a 2.4% drop saving the NHS (i.e. us tax payers!) over £8million. The theory goes that this is because passive smoking to non-smokers increases the trigger risk of a heart attack. To my mind this is not only 1200 fewer ...