Government Caught Continuing to Enforce Covid Rules on Businesses Via Health and Safety ‘Guidance’
A reader was disturbed this week by a visit from an official from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). What the official said appears to bode ill for the idea that the U.K. is ‘living with Covid’ insofar as that means moving away from all the Covid theatre and regulations of the past two years.
I work in a London hospitality business. This week an official from the HSE came in to do a Covid compliance spot check. Despite the Government making noises about Covid regulations being binned, the HSE person informed us that from April businesses with more than five employees will still be required to adhere to general ‘Covid safe’ practices, under the threat of enforcement proceedings (and fines) by the HSE.
Overhearing what the HSE official told the General Manager, it sounded to me as though it will involve keeping a Covid risk management plan in place and ensuring ventilation, access to sanitiser for customers and so on.
Most of it was asking questions about Covid management actions we have taken and are still taking. It implied that, so far as the HSE is concerned, Covid is a now a ‘standard’ risk which needs to continue to be managed alongside others.
So briefly, it appears:
– they are doing Covid spot checks insofar as they apply to employees;
– they will be increasing spot checks from April.
This suggests the perpetuation of Covid regulations will be enforced under the guise of general health and safety law. Not as advertised by the Government at all if so, and hardly reflects ‘living with Covid’ like we live with other mostly mild respiratory viruses.
Runs counter to the official narrative of a bonfire of Covid restrictions.
If the Government is serious about moving on from the pandemic then it needs to rein in the HSE and withdraw its guidance that treats COVID-19 as a special threat.
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To be fair, most of the Health and Safety folks I have encountered would love such power and this doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s a bit like pushing covid certification on the private sector, this will be the good and the great of the compliance teams doing the “right thing” for society. Underhand as ever. These politicians need to remember who pays their wages.
“These politicians need to remember who pays their wages.”
Russia and ‘big pharma’ ?
Close: China and big pharma!
{And Bill Gates, of course}
Russia? Dream on!
May I say – that is the first time I have agreed with you?
“Conservatives Accepted £80,000 From Putin-Linked Donor On Eve Of Ukraine War”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/conservatives-donations-russia_uk_621f8fbce4b0a7784bb23de8
Oh yes of course, we all hate Russia as of this year. What a fantastically stupid comment.
The Russian ‘people’ will be suffering just as much, if not more, than the Ukrainian ‘people’. They too are victims. Forgotten victims.
Where did I mention hating Russia? There are numerous accounts/claims that the UK Conservative Party has been accepting ‘gifts’ (money/bribes) from Russians. Here’s another:
“Foreign secretary Liz Truss faced calls for her party to hand back donated cash with Russian connections reportedly worth nearly £2 million.”
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/clip-of-ian-hislop-pointing-out-extent-of-russian-money-in-tory-party-resurfaces-313203/
So it would appear that your comment is “fantastically stupid” in itself.
London Economic and Ian Hislop – hardly fans of the Tories to say the least.
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by Children’s Covid Vaccines Advisory Group (CCVAG)
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“To be fair” ??
If only they would remember. Not to date that I recall.
Let’s look at the facts from the above:
“This week an official from the HSE came in to do a Covid compliance spot check.”
Note: an unidentified ‘official’. No name given.
“it sounded to me”
Well, there you go! How about contacting the HSE and asking what this is all about, instead of just guessing?
It sounded like he ‘worked’ somewhere, rather than owned it, so perhaps not his place to be querying the HSE?
Lots of thumbs-downs but is it not reasonable to make these points? Doesn’t mean you disagree, just that you’ve identified a weakness.
Thirty-eight downticks for being ‘sceptical’ and pointing out things that need to be pointed out! How bizarre!
It’s obvious that many posters on this site prefer conjecture to facts.
arguably such rules could all be part of ‘living with covid’ – deplacing personal natural immune resistance towards external physical measures; but they could leave all such to recommendations without enforcement
Arguably, such rules could have been instituted during a bad flu season, but they weren’t, and we muddled through somehow.
Or just common sense as has been the case throughout human history when it comes to diseases like colds and flu.
I would like to see their ‘rules’ for mitigating the spread of bacterial pneumonia arising from improper mask usage.
As Saint Boris loves being a celebrity and comedy dictator: instead of all this “half-heartedly appearing to do something”, why doesn’t he put his money where his mouth is, and do his impression of Lord Farquaard from Shrek?
“I am letting the virus rip, and pursuing herd immunity. Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.” (Somebody holds up a sign saying “applause”, for the benefit of the sheep)
I am letting the virus rip,
Viruses don’t rip, that is, tear something apart by force, anything. This is COVID propaganda lingo meant to create an impression of recklessness in face of a great risk despite there is no such risk and the supposedly reckless course of action is really a course of inaction, namely, not buying into the Sars-CoV2 is uniquely dangerous and deadly and therefore, we must imitate Xi’s Chinese policies for managing it via police-state methods narrative. This large-scale experiment in applied idiocy was reckless.
These viruses are tricky blighters. They hang around, just waiting until they see someone drop their guard, then they’re in like Flynn (Errol) rather than Rip (Torn).
John Dee
Do you mean they get you standing up in pub, but you are safe sitting down?
That sort of clever
I asked one particularly officious type in a pub if there was a line somewhere that told us how low we had to be to avoid it- and if maybe the taller amongst us might need to lean over to avoid it. It turns out such people are totally devoid of a sense of humour…
All citizens over 5’7″ must remain at home, for their own safety. Does anyone remember this early (September 2020) p155 take?
We thought it would be all over. Well, it isn’t yet!
The corporate industrial complex has more power than government. Johnson and the Reset Gang understand there’s more ways to skin a cat, so use the sleight of hand to maintain their covid power grab.
Gloves off people.
The gloves came off in April 2020, when thousands of vulnerable OAPs were ‘evicted’ from hospitals, dumped into care homes, labelled with DNR orders, and stuffed full of Midazolam.
Don’t agree- just look at the climate change cobblers and how businesses have fallen over like soggy rags to appease big government. Big government is in every aspect of our lives and gaining a firmer hold daily.
Being one of those ‘health and safety folks’ (Grahamb), I can say that in all walks of life you meet incompetent, officious *ankers. However, a little knowledge is useful in any field of work, guidance as published by the HSE is exactly that – guidance, failure to follow it cannot be used to support prosecution. Follow their guidance, crack a window, hold a bottle of hand gel in your office, done.
You’re reading too much into it, the country’s decided it’s over, record infections are occurring each and every day, herd immunity returns.
Disenguinity intensifies.
Guidance does not create an offence. It does however reveal what the HSE intend to prosecute under their very broad “risk to health” remit.
“If you stop struggling, I won’t have to force you.”
record infections are occurring each and every day,
They don’t. An impression of record levels of positive tests occurring each and every day has been created by changing the way these numbers are reported.
Surely they’re not moving the goalposts…again?
Are covid deaths now recorded as, ‘Anyone who has died and had received a positive covid test at any point during their life’?
Another interesting graphic: This shows smoothed day-on-day change of the 7-day case number over time and the speed of change. An individual number is calculated as factor the case number of the day before needs to be multiplied with in order to arrive at the current day case number. There’s a highly suspicious sudden jump upward (hasn’t ever occurred in this magnitude so far), followed by gradual decline. Unless a fresh amount of effort is put into doctoring the numbers, the number of so-called cases should shrink again soon.
Virus gonna virus is perhaps a somewhat silly statement, however, liars gonna lie is certainly true.
You’re wrong. Crack a window – have a bottle of gel nearby etc? No. There’s a principle here – it’s either over or it’s not. Give them an inch and… Don’t be naive.
You’re reasoning is akin to the “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of” line. Deeply sinister.
No risk is too small to take away your liberty and destroy business … the credo of the Elven Pastries.
Think this article needs some fact checking. As an HSE inspector I can help out.
1) the HSE is not the enforcing authority for hospitality sectors. This would be the Local Authority, who also enforce the H&S at work Act.
2) There are no ongoing Covid spotchecks unless someone specifically raises a concern; even then, enforcement would only be taken under the existing Workplace Health Safety and Welfare regulations, which have been always enforced. Typical breaches here would involve welfare and a lack of hot running water for example. I think most people would agree that any workplace without this would deserve a bit of a telling off and would have management issues that no doubt go beyond covid worries.
3) Guidance can not be used as a marker for legal compliance. This can only be legislation or specific codes of practice which have a particular legal status.
So, sounds like someone has got the wrong end of the stick, or been misled.
Guidance is a strong indication of what the prosecuting authority intends to enforce and prosecute under the general “risk to health” provision though.
There will be plenty of zealous jobsworths going above and beyond for a long time.
Doesn’t it all hinge on what could be expected as ‘reasonable’? Most non-technical concerns probably don’t include a staff member who could conduct a competent risk assessment anyway, so unless the govt tell them how to do it, any old bit of paper with a result would do.
Yes, sounds more like an EHO visit to me, or perhaps one of the more zealous types attracted by the Covid Marshall positions that I think are still with us?
I agree, and this would make him an employee of the local authority. In my area (Wakefield) the local authority are still pushing the “it’s not over” and “stay safe” narratives (e.g. on their own website, on electronic signboards, and written on the sides of council operated vehicles) for all they are worth, so it would be entirely consistent for their EHOs to be trying to impose them on local hospitality businesses.
Same everywhere- the public sector is determined to carry on as though it is still spring 2020 and impose as much misery on us as possible whilst doing as little work as possible. Lots of places are still closed or as good as ‘because of the coronavirus’. Not a coronavirus you’ll note, but THE. The worst thing ever.
Yes, the wrong end of the stick, or been misled, or perhaps this was just some prankster in a high-vis top! Sounds awfully suspicious to me. I also work in hospitality setting and although there have been many routine pre-booked safety checks for all manner of things, never in in the business’s 15 years of operating has there once been an unannounced “spot check” for anything (somebody just turning up out of the blue)!
Since Covid is not a RIDDOR-reportable condition, I’m not sure what legislation you’d be in breach of were the workplace not judged to be ‘covid safe’.
Unfortunately it is, or at least has been for the last 2 years. That will change though.
Curious moniker for an HSE inspector.
I will continue to avoid any businesses with any kind of “in your face” Covid theatre.
Me too. In fact it’s our duty to complain to any businesses head office if they are still enforcing OTT covid nonsense, and tell them this. Places like Specsavers are STILL making people stand outside, still have a snarling door general, still insist on masks and all the rest, and STILL people obediently comply!😠
It must depend on where you go, I went a few weeks ago walked straight in, shown to a table where the young man had a mask on and he asked me if I felt comfortable if he took it off, which after assurance from me he did.
“snarling door general”
Take a photo and post it here! These people need to be identified.
Most staff that I see when passing by a Specsavers don’t look like they could snarl the milk off a rice pudding. Perhaps that means I need spectacles?
Not at the Specsavers where my daughter is the manager. No queuing outside and no enforced mask wearing but I agree that at most others they are still depressingly ‘following the guidance’.
Gah! Specsavers! I was due an eye check around April 2020 so that obviously got deferred. I have been a Specsavers customer for some years now but had been avoiding making an appoinment because their web site goes on about how they want me to feel comfortable (by making me wear a mask and only go into their store on my own???!!! – choose glasses without input from ‘er indoors? I think not! LOL). Anyway, I was passing the store one rainy Saturday after the restrictions were relaxed and attempted to enter. The guard on the door told me I had to book via the web site and they had three chairs outside in the rain for people to queue on. Not a chance! I have now had my eyes checked. I found an optician with whom I didn’t have to book a couple of months ahead and who let me in and did the eye test without any reference to my unmaskedness. Most of the staff had masks on – it’s silly, of course, but I recognise that the store probably has to contend with local authority jobsworths and their insurance company so has to go along with the… Read more »
The refusal to take cash is the one that really irks – in the case I experienced, a London pub that demanded I swipe my bank card for the cost of a half pint of beer. I suppose the hand sanitiser emplacement near the front door should have alerted me to the petty mal within, despite the absence of any sign stating card only not cash.
I wonder if the BOE/PRA have issued any “guidance” for the better management of the citizenry in this important matter. Of course it’s not just BS but digicoin acceptance prepping – after all Dr Peter McCullough has reminded listeners time and again that COVID is not caught through the skin of the hands but through the olefactory etc organs.
You should have insisted on drinking only their digital beer.
Pizza Hut is the best, (worst?), example of this. You book a table, then when you are allowed in, you are told that you have to order and pay online via your mobile- which for me meant a lot of grief as I had to get my phone from the car, download the app, accept God knows what, trawl through a microscopic menu, then go back into the order to add stuff, pay, (before we’d even got a drink), and add a tip for good service! Then and only then are you allowed to get a drink and wait for your pizza to be brought to the table, (at least they still do that). It took me about 20 minutes to do all this, so we were the best part of half an hour before we got even a drink and 45 minutes before we got any food. A thoroughly depressing experience and one that I put up with because I had promised my young son we could eat out at Pizza Hut. Had I been on my own I would have told them very bluntly what they could do with their safety measures. This was this year, btw- not… Read more »
Why on this earth would you go anywhere near Pizza Hut in any case, in any era?
Because as I pointed out I had promised my son we could eat there. I do like their pizza too, but I won’t be going back.
Why did you have to add a tip for ‘good service’?
“put up with because I had promised my young son we could eat out at Pizza Hut.”
A lot of posters here moan about teachers ‘indoctrinating’ the kids… yet it’s OK for parents to get them used to ordering pizzas and drinks with an app?
What happens when Uncle Sam’s start using an app?
I didn’t actually leave a tip- it just came up on the options. If I had been happy with the experience and they had accepted cash I would have done so. Their loss. No- it’s not OK to order with an app- where did I say it was OK? That was the point. I went along with it because I had promised my son we could eat there and none of this is his fault. He has learning difficulties which doesn’t help. I don’t see Uncle Sam’s introducing an app- it’s a small, family owned business but if they did my opinion of them would change. They have gone as far as humanly possible to remain ‘old normal’ which again was the point I was making.
The prospect of such sterile dining experiences will increasingly turn people away from places such as these. I think there’s better frozen pizza anyway! The Pizza Hut experience is basically like ordering a takeaway pizza, except much more cumbersome.
People’s itemized bank statements are becoming more complex by the day!
I’ve been a specsavers customer for years (due to doing a lot of computer work, I’m quite short-sighted, eg, I can’t cut my foot nails without glasses) but they’ve stopped listenting to what I need/ want to buy completely in favour exclusively focussing on trying to force me to buy what they want to sell to me (reading glasses, in particular, but I don’t need glasses for reading). Presumably, at 49, I’ve crossed into the old guy who must be sufficiently well-to-do to buy random shit and sufficiently clueless that he’ll actually do it if we smart young people just keep pushing him population bracket.
🙂
Needless to say, I’m not going to buy anything there ever again and I’d urge other people to do likewise: Never do business with someone who thinks he’s extremely clever and you must therefore be very stupid.
They comply because sadly they think that these places are doing the right thing and you can’t be too careful and all that cobblers.
A lot of large businesses are still doing it just because they’re required to – not by law but probably just for insurance purposes. Any of this “in-your-face Covid theatre” can safely be ignored from now on.
And rather than avoiding them, I think it sends a more powerful message to still use whatever businesses are clinging onto these polices, but just ignore the requirements (wherever feasible).
As of 8:30 20% of the comments on this post are from people who are (claim to be) H&S officers.
I wonder if this is just this place, this time in the morning… but I’m thinking that perhaps we really are a nation of H&S professionals…
LARPing for dopamine hits, perhaps.
Are you sure this wasn’t an environmental health officer rather than H&S? In my experience, they tend to be constructive and sensible unless you take the piss. That said, the job does attract more than its fair share of tin pot hitlers too. (I know – my cousin was one of them for a few years!)
I gave up working for Sodexo Catering as they were so over the top with their covid practices. We were in a council building open to the public, so everything was very strict, and still is.
The risk assessment we needed to sign and backdate, as our manager forgot to give it to us, was a joke. It was produced in head office and mainly aimed at office workers. Re masks: If you feel unwell, speak to your manager.
We once had a Sodexo Environmental Health Person round, just qualified and very eager, everything by the book. Maybe it was a chain business and they have their own and want to keep their outlets to stick to covid stuff?
Latest variant is scheduled to drop on April 22nd
So I am guessing the Russia/Ukraine conflict is scheduled to finish April 21st then, am I right?
The day that the government “reins in” any of the agencies that are continuing its semi-hidden agenda, will be the day we see pigs circling in the sky over Westminster.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/regulating-health-and-safety/spot-inspections.htm
Tbf it looks like this is true. This web page was only updated last month. The HSE may well be the inspectorate not the prosecuting body (local authority or other) but I suppose that’s largely irrelevant if one is doing checks so the other can take enforcement action.
Begs the question why on earth would they spend money coninuing these sorts of checks for covid. Do they do them for other endemic viruses? Colds? Flu?
If the Government is serious about moving on from the pandemic then it needs to rein in the HSE and withdraw its guidance that treats COVID-19 as a special threat.
The special threat is the COVID theatre. As long as we see these absurd signs and masks (the most powerful and appalling sign of all), we are in danger of being subjected to domestic imprisonment and all manner of compulsion.
“If the Government is serious about moving on from the pandemic”
Why on earth would they want to stop a guaranteed source of income, and absolute control over the population?
Jabs 4 and 5 already lined up for 2022 – that will take us up to Christmas for starters.
The EU Vaxx Pass scheme is continuing until June 2023 – does that not ring alarm bells?
That’s why I think speculation about ‘spike proteins’ and analysing graphs is all a bit meaningless – it’s like wondering if your toenails need cutting when someone is holding a gun to your head.
I agree, absolutely.
The passage in bold is of course a quote (the final words of the article).
They (governments in many countries) have no intention of moving on. They like their creation for precisely the reasons you suggest – particularly the control they have learnt they can exercise.
The Vaxx passes in some form or other are ideal for governments and they will retain them, I believe, as long as they possibly can.
They have a loaded gun, and they know it.
Someone needs to bring a court case to take these spongers to the cleaners.
You can’t enforce HSE guidance using premises which science has proven to be completely wrong.
It’s not enough to win, there needs to be punitive damages taking the entire funding pot from the sponging compliance industry for 5 years.
The Health and Safety Executive have always been a bunch of conniving little killjoys – they’d be the perfect body to outsource the government’s Covid theatre to when sanity, logic and data have shown this to be pathetic nonsense.
UK Government just can’t lay off the COVID bong. And the reason is, that this isn’t due only to government’s endless pursuit of function creep, its orgiastic desire to micromanage every aspect of society and exert control over everything, including your very minds; it’s an inescapable function of our F.I.R.E./rentier economy where all manner of purposeless activity has to be generated to give the impression of meaningful activity and normality to replace that such as manufacturing which has largely been exported overseas at the behest of international flight capital. Here’s a good example which just crossed the Government’s RSS feed: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/cat-and-dog-microchipping-consultation “We are seeking your views on changes to the microchipping regulations. We want to make it easier to reunite lost or stolen cats and dog [sic] and improve breeder traceability.” They want to extend mandatory chipping to cats. Unlike 30 minutes ago, mysteriously that link now just takes you to Defra’s front page; previously the reader was regaled with the link and an onward link therefrom to the Consultation, which onward link however yielded only a “Consultation not found” error message. I very much doubt that any recent events or trends demand that the welfare of cats be promoted by… Read more »
If one of our cats goes missing, we will be upset, then we will go an buy another kitty.
It is a by product of making H&S a job, instead of part of everyones job. Those mortgages wont pay themselves, you know. It is all about thinking up new and exciting solutions to problems that have a diminishing possibility of occurring. Until you reach the Holy Grail of Health and Safety, solutions to problems that do not and will not exist.
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You either stand up against it and tell your employer to fuck off or you don’t. But if you do submit then you can guarantee that they will be back, asking you to submit to more.
I didn’t think the HSE had the manpower to do the required for this level of surveillance.
Rather than providing sanitiser, couldn’t we just have sanity instead?
And I thought it was just me. There are employers desperate enough to enforce the irrational “rules” because are terrified that they might have to close down. Any employee reporting a “tested positive” puts them in a quandary: to allow them to self isolate, or turn a blind eye?
Health and Safety has always been an ever expanding life destroying monster.
I’m getting déjà vu.
Haven’t we seen all this before, in the US with OSHA?
I was just in a independent vegan cafe today , it said masks still and 2 metres at all times though no one was it is still there at Muswell Hill Crouch End it still says Shop Safety, wear a Mask it can only have about 12 inside at best but does a outdoor seating area it is card only contactless. I also see that people at my work are off as they are testing positive, but not ill just a cold they say it is just a cold yet still test insanity and I also was suppose to do my choir rehearsal last week it was online I live in Tottenham I had to get a bus too Muswell Hill it is down near there . it was shut I checked the email, it was sent at half 11 in the morning, on Wednesday I must of forgot to check it it was online because two people tested positive for Covid so it was cancelled and the choir master to be fair he is obese so I suppose he should be just well losting weight , and apparently having the doors open did not stop transmission, how insane to… Read more »
The lefty/hippie/vegan types are definitely on the front line of the Covid hysteria. Waterstones is another example- all the staff still in masks, lots of customers too- some giving me the ‘look’. Mind you, that might have been my John Galt T-shirt…
I’ve been saying for years, long before Covid, that if the Government was looking to cut costs dramatically, just get rid of the HSE
And half of the public sector, starting with all woke related jobs. “Conservative” used to mean smaller government – these shits have gone full socialist on us.
On what legal basis, or can the HSE just make up their own rules?
Probably, because the Government made up most of it’s science
I attend Mass every Sunday and we’re STILL not allowed to take consecrated wine. We are expected to pray for peace in Eastern Europe as they are diving for cover from bombs and bullets. But we cannot put our lips around a consecrated chalice. The C of E has no shame.