Hospitality health and safety put under spotlight

A new health and safety report has shown that workers in the hospitality sector are more likely to be victims of violence, harassment and discrimination than in any other industry.

Issued by the European Agency for Safety and Health, the report showed that employees in pubs, bars and nightclubs are particularly at risk.

It also highlights how workers within the industry face a number of psychosocial risks such as unpredictable working hours; heavy workloads; time pressure and a lack of work-life balance.

Physical factors that pose a risk to employees include, exposure to high levels of noise and smoke; very high or low temperatures and working with dangerous substances like cleaning agents.

Health and safety policies in this sector mainly relate to food hygiene but the report demonstrated that since the introduction of the smoking ban there has been an increase in the number of health and safety measures brought into place.

Around 90% of all hospitality businesses employ less than 10 workers and so firms often lack the time and resources to implement company legislation.

Despite this fact the report highlighted excellent examples of health and safety policies and risk prevention in clubs, bars, hotels restaurants and also school canteens.

"Effective prevention management involves good risk assessment, worker involvement and training in the successful implementation of prevention measures", says the report.

The Health and Safety Executive says it is working closely with the hotels, restaurants and catering sector to reduce the number of accidents and incidences of ill health.

Words: Clare Riley

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