Hansard

Health And Safety: Guidance For Industry

Volume 413: debated on Thursday 16 October 1980

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Lord AVEBURY

asked Her Majesty's Government:

  • (a) What guidance is provided by the Medical Advisory Committee of the Health and Safety Commission to industry on the measures that should be taken to monitor health of employees and in particular whether any guidance has been issued on the records which companies ought to keep; and
  • (b) what obligations employers have to report what diseases and whether they consider these procedures are relevant to the health risks existing in industry today.

    • The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EMPLOYMENT
    (The Earl of Gowrie)

    I am informed by the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) that the main function of the HSC's Medical Advisory Committee is to advise the commission on the question of occupational health and that the committee has not itself issued guidance. The committee recently discussed and presented to the HSC a paper proposing an HSC guidance note Health Surveillance by Routine Procedures, which sets out guidance on systems to monitor the health of workers and which advises employers about the keeping of health records. This guidance is still under discussion.Employers are required under the Factories Act 1961 to report to the Factory Inspectorate all cases arising in their factories of the following industrial disease: aniline poisoning, anthrax, arsenical poisoning, beryllium poisoning, carbon bisulphide poisoning, compressed air illness, epitheliomatous ulceration, toxic anaemia and toxic jaundice. The relevance and completeness of this list is reviewed at intervals.