Clearview South October 2013 - Issue 143 | Page 14

industrynews

FIRST AID GUIDANCE AND
REGULATION CHANGES
From 1st October 2013, the Health and Safety (First Aid)
Regulations 1981 will be amended, to remove the requirement for
HSE to approve first aid training and qualifications.
The changes are part of HSE’s work to make it easier for businesses
and other users to understand how to comply with health and safety
law, whilst maintaining standards. They apply to businesses of all sizes
and from all sectors. Andy McGrory, HSE’s policy lead for First Aid,
said: “From October, HSE will no longer approve first-aid training and
qualifications. The guidance documents clarify what the law requires
and provide practical help to businesses in assessing and understanding
their first aid needs. Where a first aider is required, the guidance
documents make it clear that the employer is free to select a training
provider who is best suited to those needs.

“We have taken onboard comments and suggestions that we have
received through our public consultations on the changes and from
extended stakeholder discussions and business input to ensure the
guidance provides everything an employer will need to manage their
first aid requirements.”
The legal requirement for employers to ensure they make adequate
provision for first aid, in accordance with their first aid needs
assessment, will remain unchanged.
‘The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981’, ‘Regulations
and Guidance (L74)’ and ‘Selecting a first-aid training provider
(GEIS3)’ are now available on the HSE website.
www.hse.gov.uk

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL YEAR
Business Micros has recorded
another impressive year of
trading, with a further increase
in its customer base and a
marked increase in the number
of customers choosing to rent
rather than buy its software.
Graeme Bailey, Managing
Director of Business Micros, says
that the Company’s performance
reflects the mood of the industry
as a whole with fabricators
reviewing their suppliers and
ensuring that they have the right
partners in place to help take

them forward into the recovery.
He says: “We are seeing an
increasing number of enquiries
from companies who can see
opportunities ahead and want
to be sure that their software
supplier has both the capacity and

‘They feel secure’
the resources to help them make
the most of those.
“They tell us that they feel
secure with Business Micros as
their partner, particularly since

we are currently expanding our
team and investing even more
in programming to develop our
systems further.”
He adds: “Customers who
enter rental agreements with us
get automatic upgrades on their
software, they get free access to
our support team and they get to
keep their capital for other types
of investment.”
Further information on the
EvoNet software is available at
www.businessmicros.co.uk

Cut red tape to boost house building
Moves to cut red-tape by
streamlining housing standards
would be a major boost to
Britain’s small and mediumsized house builders, and will
help to increase the supply and
choice of new homes needed to
address the growing housing
crisis, says the Federation of
Master Builders (FMB).
As the Government launched
its Housing Standards
Review consultation process,
Beatrice Orchard, Head of
Communications at the FMB,

14

OCT 2013

responded: “The proliferation of
an array of local, national and
voluntary standards has added
unnecessary complexity and cost
to the house building industry
in recent decades. These costs
have a disproportionate impact
on smaller firms and smaller
developments.”
Orchard continued: “It is
essential we continue to bear
down on unnecessary red tape
and bureaucracy, to encourage
more SME developers to bring
new homes to market.”

Orchard added: “There is no
reason why this should entail
any reduction in the standards of
new homes being built; indeed
clearer and more consistent
national standards will be a huge
improvement on the current
complex system. We would also
welcome steps to incorporate any
nationally described standards
proposed by the review into
Building Regulations in future.”

www.fmb.org.uk

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