How to manage industrial diseases in your hospitality business.

This article has been written by Pilla Founder, Liam Jones, click to email Liam directly, he reads every email.

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Industrial diseases are health problems caused by work. In the UK, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) 2002 and the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 2013 cover how to manage these risks. Hospitality businesses must look at what substances or tasks could make staff ill. This could be things like cleaning products, flour dust in bakeries, or noise in a busy kitchen.

It's important to find these risks and take steps to keep staff safe. This might mean swapping dangerous substances for safer ones, using protective equipment, or giving staff health checks. If a team member does get an industrial disease, it needs to be reported under RIDDOR.

So, to keep everyone healthy, hospitality businesses need to stay on top of COSHH and RIDDOR. They should check what could cause diseases, take action to lower the risks, and keep an eye out for any signs of illness in their staff. Including industrial disease risks in your health and safety planning helps you take care of your team and follow the law.

Industrial diseases Arrangements

The following are examples of industrial diseases in the workplace:

  • •Musculoskeletal (normally through poor manual handling)
  • •Occupational Deafness (through exposure to high-level noise unprotected)
  • •Vibration White Finger (through prolonged use of vibrating handheld tools)
  • •Carpal Tunnel Syndrome - Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)
  • •Allergic Rhinitis (nasal irritation from non-infectious particles)
  • •Dermatitis
  • •Silicosis
  • •Occupational asthma

Your company has a legal duty to identify instances where service provision may impact the health of the workforce, conduct risk assessments, monitor, and conduct surveillance checks for signs and symptoms of industrial diseases that may be as a result of your undertakings.

By conducting risk assessments, you can identify control measures to reduce risk to the workforce. If identified as required, health surveillance checks will enable monitoring of exposure where possible and implementation of measures to reduce the effect of any exposure as much as is reasonably practicable.

All employees should be made aware of these types of hazards and the precautions to be adopted. Your company, as part of its protocols, provides training to reduce the risk of industrial injuries and diseases and encourages staff to maintain a high level of personal hygiene, which is one of the best measures to avoid many industrial diseases, particularly when it comes to skin conditions such as Dermatitis.

All employees should be made aware of the types of hazards and the precautions to be adopted. The company also has a legal duty under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrence Regulations to report any incidences of industrial diseases amongst its employees to the enforcing authorities.

It is the duty of all company employees to report incidences of industrial diseases to senior management. This is something that is encouraged, and all reported issues will be investigated thoroughly to identify a means to reduce employees' exposure to further risk.