Annual Health and Safety Report AGM 2020 | Project De-Vine Environmental Trust

Annual Health and Safety Report November 2020

Accident Summary Register:

Accident date and staff member	Cause of accident:	Practical conclusion.
17/3 Liz Watson	Cut hand while sharpening chainsaw	She sought help w/ a triage nurse and took 2 days off work.
26/5 Jed Bright	Scratched his cornea with a plastic pouch during smoko	Returned to work then later went to see a doctor who gave him some ointment. He took the next day off work.
24/6 Hohepa McClean	Poked eye with a stick while bending down	First aid and took the rest of the week off to recover
13/6 Bianca Harris	Wrenched shoulder while slipping on steep ground.	She continued to work and then had a few days off. (possibly exacerbated a previous injury)
2/7 Mark Brignole	Poked with a stick causing some bleeding	First aid then returned to work.

Conclusions: There were very few reported accidents this year. We have gone away from Paper toolboxes In an attempt to go fully digital and while the data from them is easy to gather it could influence the amount of useful data we are getting. It will go on the agenda for the next meeting.

Eye injuries continue to be one of the most common injuries for us. Even with safety eyewear it is easy to get poked by a stick due to the nature of the terrain. Consistently alerting new staff to the eye injury threat in inducting new staff is probably the most important thing I can do for them. It has been added to the checklist.

H and S matters, General and upcoming:

Covid 19 is obviously the big news Item for the year. It was a tricky balancing act in terms of keeping staff safe, adherence to ever changing requirements from Government and clients, and wanting to get back to work as soon as possible, but I think we have done very well. Some key lessons for us are the fact that if people stay home when they are ill there will ultimately be less missed work and not more. Also that we are ready at any point to delve back into our protocols regarding socially distanced work outcomes should the need arise.

The next challenge for us will be providing for a much larger PDVET organization as is likely to happen this coming year. With a bigger organization comes the necessity to tighten and possibly rework some systems. The question is what will need to change as far as our safety systems go to accommodate a PDVET twice as large or larger than its present size. A move to a larger office that can accommodate meetings for 20 plus people is a very positive step us in this regard.