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SAFETY BRIEFING NOTE– 122018

Rise in Stanley Knife incidents

Background

So far this year, and we are only coming to the end of the first quarter – there have been 3 incidents involving deep cut injuries to the hands of both our employees and subcontractors. All incidents were as a result of a fixed blade Stanley knife slipping and avoidable.

Consequences

Two employees had to be taken to hospital for further treatment. This caused staff to take time off of work and have also needed to be placed on light duties until a full recovery has been made. The subcontractor incident also lost time and the job was left incomplete for the client damaging our reputation

What you need to remember?

Since the new safety management system, a decision was made to remove the notification of use process for Stanley knife– we trusted you as mature adults to be able to have these tools and use them safely. If any further instances occur of miss-use of stanley blades then a decision may have to be made to ban the use of them completely. There are safer blades on the market – which we have trialled in a number of locations successfully. These should be used in preference of stanley blades.

As general precautions, if a Stanley knife is the only tool fit for purpose, the following advice will need to be adhered to:

  • Conduct your dynamic risk assessments; is this the best way of conducting this task?
  • Always use the type of tool where the blade can be retracted into the handle or has a blade cover. These ‘safety knives’ can be purchased for you.
  • Never attempt to cut material held in the palm of the free hand
  • Place the material on a bench or similar surface; secure in a vice whenever possible.
  • Always cut away from your body or limbs
  • Always keep the free hand behind the blade and where possible use a guide for protection.
  • If a risk of cut injury remains then cut resistant gloves will be made available for you to wear. The best protection available to Integral are the Cut 5 green Traffigloves (see photo above). These are now provided as standard in the Integral PPE bags

Allison Connick, MSc, CMIOSH, IIRSM, MRSH, FCMI

National Director of HS&E

Prepared by / Approved by / Issue Date / Alert Ref No / Source / Attachments / Pages
Rob Bullen / National Director of HS&E / 23rdMarch 2018 / 122018 / Internal / No / 1 of 1