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Safety Regulations (safety + regulation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Law and Criminology	33%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	33%
Medical Sciences	22%

Selected Abstracts

The Dangers of Hanging Baskets: ,Regulatory Myths' and Media Representations of Health and Safety Regulation

JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2009
Paul Almond
The successful enforcement of health and safety regulation is reliant upon the ability of regulatory agencies to demonstrate the legitimacy of the system of regulatory controls. While ,big cases' are central to this process, there are also significant legitimatory implications associated with ,minor' cases, including media-reported tales of pettiness and heavy-handedness in the interpretation and enforcement of the law. The popular media regularly report stories of ,regulatory unreasonableness', and they can pass quickly into mainstream public knowledge. A story's appeal becomes more important than its factual veracity; they are a form of ,regulatory myth'. This paper discusses the implications of regulatory myths for health and safety regulators, and analyses their challenges for regulators, paying particular attention to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which has made concerted efforts to address regulatory myths attaching to its activities. It will be shown that such stories constitute sustained normative challenges to the legitimacy of the regulator, and political challenges to the burgeoning regulatory state, because they reflect some of the key concerns of late-modern society. [source]

Food Safety Regulation and the Conflict of Interest: The Case of MeatSafety and E. Coli 0157

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2000
Richard Schofield
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) aims to remove the longstanding conflict of interest between producers and consumers which is thought to lie at the heart of the rising number of food safety problems of recent years, to restore consumer confidence, and to protect public health. This paper sets out firstly to understand what the conflicts are, how they arise and their implications for food safety, and secondly to provide some means of evaluating the proposals for the Food Standards Agency. It does this by examining the current food safety regulatory regime as it relates to e. coli 0157, one of the problems that gave rise to the FSA and an exemplar of the problems of meat safety, and places it in its wider economic context. The results show that the financial pressures on the food industry were such that food hygiene was largely dependent upon external regulation and enforcement. But the deficiencies in the conception, design and implementation of the Food Safety Act, which was fundamentally deregulatory and privileged producer interests, permitted the food safety problems to grow. The case also, by illustrating how the interests of big business predominate in the formulation of public policy at the expense of the public, reveals how the class nature of the state affects public policy and social relations. Without addressing these issues, the problems they give rise to will remain. While the case is based on experiences in Britain, the problem of food safety and the issues raised have an international significance. [source]

Enforcement, risk and discretion: the case of dangerous consumer products

LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2006
Peter Cartwright
This paper considers the effectiveness of the enforcement provisions of consumer product safety law by examining the new legislation in this area (the General Product Safety Regulations 2005), and the broader context in which it operates. The paper suggests that to understand the likely effectiveness of the Regulations, it is necessary to examine what the author refers to as the internal and external dimensions of enforcement. The paper is divided into three parts: part one sets out the enforcement provisions of the Regulations; part two examines the internal elements of enforcement; part three examines the external elements of enforcement. The internal elements are those provisions found in the statute that direct enforcement authorities in the action they can take. The external elements are those pressures outside the statute that inevitably impinge upon the ability of the enforcement authority to make a decision. It will be argued that while recent developments make some important strides forward in protecting consumers from dangerous products, there is a risk that the law will not be enforced satisfactorily. [source]

Occupational health and safety in transitional Lithuania

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 3 2003
Charles Woolfson
Using the example of occupational health and safety regulation, this article examines the tensions between neo-liberalism and social democratic policy approaches in the context of pre-accession transitional Lithuania. It is argued that attempts to provide a ,business-friendly' investment climate may be creating a ,race to the bottom' as legislative failures to provide for employee voice come into conflict with assumptions of the so-called European social model. [source]

The Dangers of Hanging Baskets: ,Regulatory Myths' and Media Representations of Health and Safety Regulation

Adverse Event Reporting: Lessons Learned from 4 Years of Florida Office Data

DERMATOLOGIC SURGERY, Issue 9 2005
Brett Coldiron MD, FACP
Background Patient safety regulations and medical error reporting systems have been at the forefront of current health care legislature. In 2000, Florida mandated that all physicians report, to a central collecting agency, all adverse events occurring in an office setting. Purpose To analyze the scope and incidence of adverse events and deaths resulting from office surgical procedures in Florida from 2000 to 2004. Methods We reviewed all reported adverse incidents (the death of a patient, serious injury, and subsequent hospital transfer) occurring in an office setting from March 1, 2000, through March 1, 2004, from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. We determined physician board certification status, hospital privileges, and office accreditation via telephone follow-up and Internet searches. Results Of 286 reported office adverse events, 77 occurred in association with an office surgical procedure (19 deaths and 58 hospital transfers). There were seven complications and five deaths associated with the use of intravenous sedation or general anesthesia. There were no adverse events associated with the use of dilute local (tumescent) anesthesia. Liposuction and/or abdominoplasty under general anesthesia or intravenous sedation were the most common surgical procedures associated with a death or complication. Fifty-three percent of offices reporting an adverse incident were accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, American Association for Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgical Facilities, or American Association for Ambulatory Health Care. Ninety-four percent of the involved physicians were board certified, and 97% had hospital privileges. Forty-two percent of the reported deaths were delayed by several hours to weeks after uneventful discharge or after hospital transfer. Conclusions Requiring physician board certification, physician hospital privileges, or office accreditation is not likely to reduce office adverse events. Restrictions on dilute local (tumescent) anesthesia for liposuction would not reduce adverse events and could increase adverse events if patients are shifted to riskier approaches. State and/or national legislation establishing adverse event reporting systems should be supported and should require the reporting of delayed deaths. [source]

Project Development in Complex Environments: Assessing Safety in Design and Decision-Making

JOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001
Joop F. M. Koppenjan
How can we be sure that safety risks are adequately dealt with in the design of complex, innovative projects? In The Netherlands, a number of recent innovative project initiatives have made this a relevant question. These initiatives include projects such as the construction of tunnels using new technologies, the construction of underground facilities that combine several functions, i.e. shopping, parking and transport, and the development of a transport corridor in which rail, road and waterway have been or will be combined. These projects combine several functions and have been, or will be, realised in densely built and populated areas. Although safety regulations for products and systems have been institutionalised through legislation and professional design practices, recent project proposals link systems and their environment in new and complex ways. The risks evolving from these links are unknown and the extent to which they are covered by existing safety approaches is uncertain. In this contribution, we examine how the attention paid to safety can be increased and maintained in the design process of infrastructural projects. First, we discuss the need to reorganise the safety focus in the design process. Then we describe the role of the design process in decision-making for major projects with regard to utility building, town planning and the construction of infrastructures. Third, we elaborate how the focus on safety can be organised within this context, given developments in the field of interactive decision-making and the design and management of interaction processes. We then outline a safety risk management method that can be used to achieve this and, finally, address the conditions that influence the use of this method. [source]

Workplace health and safety regulations: Impact of enforcement and consultation on workers' compensation claims rates in Washington State,

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 5 2003
James Baggs PhD
Abstract Background There has been considerable debate in the public policy arena about the appropriate mix of regulatory enforcement and consultation in achieving desired health and safety behavior across industries. Recently there has been a shift in federal policy toward voluntary approaches and constraining the scope of enforcement programs, although there is little evidence that this might improve health and safety outcomes. To address this, we examined changes in lost time workers compensation claims rates for Washington State employers who had (1) no OSHA State Plan (WISHA) activity, (2) enforcement, (3) consultation, and (4) both types of visits. Methods Compensable claims rates, hours, and WISHA activity were determined for each employer account with a single business location that had payroll hours reported for every quarter from 1997,2000 and more than 10 employees. We used a generalized estimating equations (GEE) approach to Poisson regression to model the association between WISHA activity and claims rate controlling for other external factors. Results Controlling for previous claims rate and average size, claims rates for employers with WISHA enforcement activity declined 22.5% in fixed site industry SIC codes compared to 7% among employers with no WISHA activity (P,<,0.05), and in non-fixed site SICs (e.g., construction) claims rates declined 12.8% for employers with enforcement activity compared to a 7.4% decline for those with no WISHA activity (P,>,0.10). WISHA consultation activity was not associated with a greater decline in compensable claims rates (,2.3% for fixed sites and +3.5% for non-fixed sites). WISHA activity did not adversely affect worksite survivability through the study period. Conclusions Enforcement inspections are significantly associated with decreasing compensable workers compensation claims rates especially for fixed site employers. We were unable to identify an association between consultation activities and decreasing claims rates. Am. J. Ind. Med. 43:483,494, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

What risk should public accept from chemical process facilities?

PROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS, Issue 2 2007
Ernst Meyer
Abstract Major incidents in chemical process plants such as Bhopal have raised the questions of facility, safety, and security by stakeholders and interest groups. How will the facility be perceived as safe given the possible consequences? No one denies that there have been improvements in process safety since Bhopal and many safety regulations have come into effect. The public may still question whether it is safe to live or work near a chemical plant today. This paper discusses the risk that the public should accept under governmental leadership and guidance. Also discussed is how the chemical process industry should ensure risk acceptance criteria compliance and maintenance of compliance throughout the lifetime of a facility. Safety may be enforced by compliance with a pre-defined set of risk acceptance criteria. These criteria may be absolute and tangible, but in some cases are more abstract. Different practices are seen among different countries, states, and regions as well as between different industry segments. This paper discusses the meaning of risk acceptance criteria and how exposed people and regulatory bodies should relate to the criteria. © 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2007 [source]