• Home

AAET Egypt

It is not just a question of asp an Elastoplast checklist."So the role for lawyers in co-ordinating the work asp of advertising other professionals, such as occupational welfare consultants and medical practitioners, is to guide advertising businesses to the process by which they themselves can find the right solution. In part, this can be done adver by reference to how others are doing it."One of my clients is a building society, which I am helping with adver its policy on upper-limb disorders. Because I advertising adver have done this for others, the client is not starting asp with a blank sheet. What I do asp is get the adver client thinking in the right direction to develop a policy. This is how the HSE expects companies to act - advertising adver and advertising not by acquiring off-the-shelf packages. Documentation has never saved lives, and my experience as a litigator tells me that if people don't understand the asp reasons for documentation and policies, they don't work."Health and safety issues are not just relevant to industry's dark satanic mills, as many people may believe.

They are applicable to any working environment, Mr Bretton points out."This office has a health and safety policy," he says. "Someone could get electrocuted by the photocopier or trip over a telephone lead - lots of things are capable of injuring someone, and eventually they will."Ninety per cent of a health and safety policy is common sense, Mr Bretton says. "We want to encourage people to plan and thus avoid a tragedy way down the track. Accidents are so often preventable."This kind of planning can also save businesses money. The 1.6 million occupational accidents that occur each year cost companies £4bn. Insurance is not the answer: average uninsured costs are greater than the cost of insurance premiums paid.The insurers are in the best position to ensure compliance with health and safety regulations, Mr Bretton suggests. Many companies don't know that if they comply they can often make an immediate saving on premiums, by as much as a factor of ten.They will also see other benefits accruing from good health and safety policies: improved staff morale and performance, for instance, and a reduction in staff turnover and absenteeism."Health and safety is not only about not injuring people, it is also about improving performance," Mr Bretton says.

Some 30 million working days are lost each year from occupational accidents. The cost to society is estimated to be about 5 per cent of total gross trading profits."We have rung a chord with commercial clients because what we are doing ties in with total quality and other management systems. Health and safety plays a part in quality, and is just as important as the quality of the company's product."The club's facilities include a 24-hour advice line (for which a charge is levied, though club membership is free). It offers workshops for the exchange of information, regular notes and advice about new regulations and other developments, and access to a comprehensive health and safety library.Since its launch last October, the club has recruited more than 40 members, including commercial clients of Osborne Clarke. "It gets me in closer contact with both clients and prospective clients," Mr Bretton says. "If it continues to be successful, businesses will become more aware of health and safety needs, they will recognise the reasons they need to comply and the benefits of compliance - and it may bring me work."This is an area in which there are not that many experts. We see ourselves as a market leader and we feel we can legitimately approach the clients of our competitors.