The Corporate Manslaughter

 Avoiding fatalities with the help of technology in any organisation

Some while ago in 2007 the corporate manslaughter and corporate homicide act was introduced in to law - it became law on the 6th April 2008. The scope of this act is throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland but is a little different as it becomes 'corporate homicide' in Scotland. Strangely this legislation, the corporate manslaughter act is also applicable to Hong Kong territories.

But what's it all about? and is this legislation just another statute that burdens business with more red tape? And why does it matter to your company?

The reality is, that these corporate manslaughter and corporate homicide acts are responsible for making the working environment safer. But how was that achieved? The legislation effectively creates a rather large 'stick' towards management right at the top of the chain and responsible people in any company; this helps to ensure that employees (or for that matter anyone involved or even visiting their business) are kept completely safe.

If someone gets killed and the death is caused by lack of duty of care by the organisation (corporation, partnership, trade unions, employers associations, police forces, and many government departments to name but a few) then the consequences could be dire. Failure to abide by Health and Safety legislation causing a death creates a 'gross breach' of duty depending on the circumstances.

But this article is not here to advise you about the corporate manslaughter and corporate homicide act as such, but rather to highlight the worst case scenario of failure to adhere to the legislation and some of the possible consequences of that failure.

But what can be done to make an organisations environment safer and reduce the potential of injury or death? One of the key areas that is critical is the speed of the emergency teams to attend to someone critically in danger or injured that could easily turn in to a fatality. But that's easy to say, however in reality it can be a hard problem to solve on occasion because of a lack of knowledge of what solutions are available that could help most organisations. Communication in any emergency is also key.

While there are many communication systems out there that could be used to communicate in emergency situations, which ones to choose and implement is an important factor in ensuring that your organisation is not subject to any breach of the legislation or its consequences thereafter.

Taking a look at wireless two way radios these can offer a good solution for when someone is hurt, but if the person is a lone worker then things can get more cumbersome. Some two way radios include a facility for lone workers and if for example someone was to fall over (even being unconscious) then the two way radio has the ability to 'warn' other members onsite about the situation so they can offer help or investigate the problem. Some two way radios can even notify a mobile phone when there are problems by using other specialised custom equipment. With custom specialised equipment whole team could easily be notified that someone is down and then emergency teams can attend the scene.

Other alternatives often include the person 'calling in' every thirty minutes (variable and determined by the system) and if they don't call in then the alarm is raised. But usually the two way radio solution often only identifies 'the area' where the injured person may be and in large organisations that can sometimes be an issue. Working anywhere that is underground or in confined spaces surrounded by metal makes this form of technology a poor choice.

Other solutions that are available include mobile phone based systems, while mobile based solutions are pretty good for outdoors (assuming that there is phone coverage) but often indoors, underground or in other situations then they tend to be unreliable or not operational at all. Depending on those mobile phone based solutions could be a challenge if they don't work and someone gets killed.

Similarly, where pendant (or similar device) based on GPS, satellite based or other similar technologies are used, often there are issues when it comes down to operability in many situations (indoors, underground, and even in areas that need to be intrinsically safe such as bakery premises as an example) that need to be carefully considered where lives are concerned. No one wants a system that only works part of the time do they?