Rise in deaths of absestos-related cancer in West Midlands

Regular readers of this page will know that C&D have, over the last 5 years, carried out UKATA approved Asbestos Awareness training somewhere in the UK several times every week and when we started that training in 2007 we fully expected that asbestos related deaths would bottom out.

The HSE Campaign "The Hidden Killer" was launched as evidence showed that asbestos related deaths were in fact continuing to rise because general maintenace workers, carpenters, electricians, plasterers and roofers were not aware of the dangers from the lethal fibres.

As we continue to deliver asbestos awareness training, the next open course is in Solihull on 15 December, we now hear from the Birmingham Post that asbestos related deaths in our own backyard have risen again this year. The article below states that asbestos related deaths in males has increased once again but the really frightening numbers are the female deaths as working with asbestos is seen as a male dominated profession.

My thoughts on this are that those female deaths will come from one of the following areas:-

- School teachers or caretakers who have, unwittingly, been exposed to asbestos by pinning drawings to classroom notice boards that were made of asbestos or entering a boiler house where lagging has been disturbed.

- Cleaning staff who may have been exposed during their normal work of cleaning offices and work areas.

- Housewives who did nothing more than wash the overalls of their husbands each week not realising that the deadly dust was on the overalls and now in the washing machine and transferred to other clothing. "Take Home" asbestos such as this is a major problem in the USA and we cannot allow it to become a major problem in the UK.

The key to prevention is education of the workforce and the public that "Asbestos Kills" and the only way to protect yourself is to prevent inhalation of the fibres so "WEAR A MASK".

Batman wore a mask to hide his identity, I wear mine to save my life.

Source: Birmingham Post

Mike Rumble - Police and Crime Commissioner Candidate.

Regular visitors to this site will know that John is not really interested in politics but he is interesed in who is elected as the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner on Thursday 15 November. John will certainly be voting for a friend of his Mike Rumble who is standing as an Independent Candidate in the elections.

Mike has some strong views on what the job requires as can be seen below:

Mike Rumble – Independent
Police and Crime Commissioner Candidate

On 15th November this year elections will be held across the West Midlands to appoint a Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for the West Midlands Police area.

The successful candidate will replace the current Police Authority and have responsibility for setting the policing priorities for the area in a 5 year plan; bringing the Chief Constable to account for delivering those priorities, managing the entire police budget and commissioning services that support the victims of crime and crime reduction programmes.

I have lived and worked in the West Midlands all of my life and I am a former West Midlands Police officer who, since retirement in 1999, has formed and managed a number of businesses. My core business is a specialist agency supplying qualified personnel to support solicitor’s firms, specialising in criminal defence advocacy. I have extensive experience in bringing authority to account for their actions and in managing budgets to provide the best service for money. I have also negotiated service contracts with companies nationwide and with public sector organisations such as the Legal Services Commission, Ofsted and the Care Quality Council.

I am a church warden, and a volunteer driver for the White House Cancer Charity in Dudley, driving cancer patients undergoing outpatient treatment to and from their appointments and I am also a volunteer advocate with the charity Dudley Advocacy, providing support to people with learning difficulties or others who need support when dealing with authority.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party and I am personally funding my own campaign to ensure your vote counts and your voice is heard by an independent candidate answerable only to the electorate.

I believe that I possess the knowledge, skills and experience that make me the best candidate for election as the first West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner. If you care about your community and having your opinions and voice really heard, please vote for me on the 15 November 2012.

I have broken down into three parts the responsibilities of the PCC and how I intend to deliver on each one. Of course it is impossible to include all the information on a leaflet so for more information you can visit my website at www.mikerumblewmpcc.co.uk or telephone or write to me to obtain a free paper copy of all the campaign details. You can also follow me on Twitter at @MikeRumble1

POLICE

It will be no surprise that I am very pro-police and proud of a service which is the envy of the world. I am also not blind to their faults and occasional failures. The police service is undergoing a period of massive change, much of which the public are not aware of.

The Association of Chief Police Officers, who are not known for public criticism of government policy, has warned that the operational capabilities are close to breaking point as a result of police officer redundancies. I know from personal contacts that morale is at an all time low in the service.

Proposals to privatise parts of the service and award contracts to private security firms will not receive my support and I will not sign any contract which is subject to the current negotiations. £5 million has been allocated to those negotiations, most of which so far has been spent on consultants fees. As PCC I will have the authority to stop this waste and I certainly will.

I want to maintain an efficient service and I am the only candidate to state publically that I will call an immediate stop to further police and support staff redundancies. I have already identified a financial plan to retain the 85 officers ear-marked for the next round of redundancies and to do so within budget.

I will also call upon the Chief Constable to give the Police Community Support Officers (PCSO’s) who patrol our streets in uniform, a full range of powers, including appointing them as Special Constables, which will allow them to support their police colleagues and have authority to arrest offenders. This is not intended to replace police officers, far from it, but we must make the best use of all of our resources and maintain an effective presence on our streets.

I will immediately address the one issue that affects public confidence which has been repeatedly raised but never addressed. That is the issue of the police investigating complaints made against them or their organisation. The public have often said there is no confidence in this process and I intend to challenge the Chief Constable to redeploy the police officers presently employed in the Professional Standards department (Complaints dept) to front line policing and replace them with civilian independent investigators ultimately answerable to me.

CRIME

Part of the core duties of a PCC is to consult with the public, identify their priorities in terms of crime and anti-social behaviour and in consultation with the Chief Constable, produce a policing plan, which addresses those issues. The PCC is also required to bring the Chief Constable to account on delivering positive results.

I will continue to consult with the electorate during my campaign and voice their priorities once elected. I will not however, list those priorities pre-election. Instead, if I am elected I will invite key organisations, who are experts in their field and in representing the public at large to form a policy consultative committee. Organisations such as Victim Support, Neighbourhood Watch, Barnardos, Age Concern, the Chamber of Commerce and others, who (instead of campaigning from the outside) will be invited to share their client groups concerns. In that way I can make the most informed decisions, based on best practice and a truly broad consultation process.

I will also campaign on wider crime reduction and public protection issues. I will press for all sex offenders to be “tagged” with GPS trackers for the entire time they remain on the sex offenders register, monitored by the police, not a security company. Listening to your concerns, I will insist on a policy of keeping offenders in custody charged with violent, sex and hate or burglary crimes to appear before the first available court. I will also negotiate with the Crown Prosecution Service to return charging powers to Police Custody Officers.

I have often been asked about my view on “zero tolerance”. My response is that it is rhetoric. I want to allow our officers to police using their training, experience and professional discretion, being proactive and firm but fair. My experience of zero tolerance is that you alienate the public and arrest the grandmother who forgot she walked out of the shop without paying. That is not policing it is propaganda.

COMMISSIONER

An important part of the PCC’s remit is the funding of services that help to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour. Also, as you may have seen from my web-site, central government has decided that Victim Support will no longer be funded as a national programme but instead it will be paid for by the PCC’s in each area.

I intend to prioritise funding the Victim Support service in the West Midlands area to ensure that victims of crime are supported.

I have visited and consulted with a number of support services, including drug and alcohol intervention programmes, domestic violence initiatives , anger management groups and young person liaison groups all working very hard to change people’s abusive and anti-social behaviour. They all work with challenging client groups that have come into contact with the criminal justice system. With the assistance of these organisations, I have researched the cost and social benefits of pro-active intervention.

I will commission a number of services based on a payments by results and regularly monitor their performance to make sure we are spending our budget to the benefit of crime reduction and victim protection.

Save your life for £30.00

Here at C&D Consultancy we spend many an hour delivering Asbestos Awareness courses to the demolition industry to spread the word of “The Hidden Killer” HSE campaign but we are concerned that there are still 4000 people per year dying from asbestos related diseases and the majority of these people are carpenters, plumbers and electricians who are maybe not aware that if they “could” be exposed to asbestos then they must have asbestos awareness training.

Because of our concerns we have decided to run asbestos awareness training courses for West Midlands tradesmen at a venue in in Wolverhampton on every Tuesday for the next 10 weeks to try to improve upon the impact of the HSE campaign. The courses will run in the evenings for approximately 2 hours and will be at the reduced price of £30.00 per person, hence the “Save your life for £30.00”.

For further details of the course or to book a place please email
john.woodward@demolishdismantle.co.uk or call 01902 686363.

10 Work-Related Deaths in West Midlands last year

The Birmingham Post small business news page reports that the Health & Safety Executive have released new figures showing a slight fall in work - related deaths in the West Midlands in the year to 31 March 2010 from the previous year figure of 11, but they are calling for more to be done to reduce them further.

The 10 deaths from last year compares to an average of 22 work-related deaths in the region over the last 5 years.

Across Britain, the number of people killed at work has fallen to a record low of 151 in 2009/10 which is a decrease of 15 per cent from the previous year figure of 178 which was itself a record low figure.

Steve Flanagan, HM Principal Inspector at the Health and Safety Executive in the West Midlands is reported to have said:

“While it's heartening to see a reduction in the number of work-related deaths in the West Midlands, it's simply not good enough that 10 people failed to come home from work to their families last year. Many of these unnecessary deaths could have been avoided if simple and sensible precautions had been in place, and if workers had been involved in dealing with the risks they face”. “For the sake of those workers who have lost their lives, HSE will continue to take an uncompromising approach to safety.”

Theses new figures show that compared to the latest data available for the four other leading industrial nations in Europe – Germany, France, Spain and Italy – Great Britain has, for more than the last six years, had the lowest rate of fatal injuries.

The opinion from the team at C&D is that we must all devote more time to Health & Safety and to changing the mindset of directors and workers alike to further reduce death and injury in the UK. A trained workforce is a safer workforce and we would encourage you to take stock of your training needs and look at our list of courses to see how you can deal with those needs.