Health and Safety inspectors turn their attentions to home workers

Home workers who develop bad backs from working at their kitchen tables are being offered video Zoom calls with health and safety inspectors to check they are working safely.

Sarah Newton, the new chairman of the Health and Safety Executive, urged home workers to get in touch if they are worried about their office space at home. Millions of people are now expecting to work from home for six months after the Government changed its guidance.

In her first interview since taking up her position in August, Ms Newton told the Telegraph that HSE inspectors have not "so far" started to inspect people's workspace at home. But she said: "If people are working at home, they're going to be using the app for the internet, Skype, which is what we're doing now.

"So we can have those Zoom calls from, from our inspectors from our visiting offices and from checkers."

The HSE would then take up the issue with employers, she said.

"Once an employer gets a call from the Health and Safety Executive pointing out that they've had these concerns raised by their staff - action is taken.

“So if an employee rings us up with these concerns, then we contact the employer, we go back to the employer to say has something changed? If it hasn't, we go back to the employer until we get a resolution to the matter.”

Ms Newton, who was a Conservative MP from 2010 to 2019, urged home workers to contact the HSE's helpline if they felt they were not working in a safe environment.

She said: "Anybody who's got any concern can call our helpline, whether you're a home worker or not.

"They will then listen you know to the people answering the phone, listen to them very carefully. their concerns, and then, if necessary, will raise that with their employer.

"You can be completely anonymous, we understand that people might be very nervous about people taking detrimental action against them."

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant that for the HSE offices - not just building sites and oil rigs - need to be checked for whether they risk people's lives because of poor social distancing. The HSE's helpline has been contacted 23,500 times which in turn led to 4,850 additional visits from health and safety inspectors.

HSE currently has just under 1,000 warranted inspectors. Hundreds of additional spot check support officers, who are inspectors but will be sent to check on workplaces, are being recruited.

Speaking on a deserted floor of the Department of Work and Pensions' offices in central London, Ms Newton said: "The pandemic has brought a whole new level of risk to people going to work.

"We put out a lot of guidance to employers reminding them that if they asked their staff to work from home, their health and safety obligations remain that they do need to do a risk assessment alongside their employee.

"Employees should be having conversations with their staff that they've asked to work from home, asking them to make sure they do you have an appropriate workstation."

Ms Newton's advice for those working advice on working from home was to have "short breaks, and really think about your posture, yoga, some exercises, getting your laptop at the right height".

She added: "Sit straight, stand up if you can. Go for a walk, get some fresh air."