The importance of safe practices in the workplace
Having achieved a gold standard award last year from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), we marked a second consecutive year of success in the business of health and safety at work. We understand how important it is to promote safe practices in the workplace, create a safe space which reassures employees and gives everyone at the company the confidence to thrive, and this attitude towards health and safety is central to the products we research, design and manufacture.
With the current pressures on the NHS persisting, it is more important than ever to maintain a safe and comfortable environment. A recent study by the British Medical Journal was highlighted in a Guardian(1) article as it revealed how the increased pressures of burnout within the healthcare sector placed doctors and nurses at a higher risk of work-related injury. Studies showed that the risk of burnout is now at its worst since it was first tracked in 2018, and as levels of burnout rise, we see a harmful domino effect beginning to take place, leading towards increased safety concerns within the workplace.
Excessive workloads, and work intensity have been shown to increase physician fatigue, and with 44% of trainees regularly feeling exhausted in the morning, and a further 26% saying tiredness impairs their ability to provide safe care(2), it is crucial that action is taken, otherwise both patients and healthcare professionals are at an increased risk of injury.
With over 70 years of experience in developing medical device solutions for our own brand and for the world’s leading pharmaceutical and diagnostic innovators, we understand the complexities of creating medical devices for new customer requirements and international markets, all while keeping one thing at the core of our product design – safety. Through an awareness of real world impacts we want to provide effective medical devices, which keep healthcare professionals around the world safe from injury and give them peace of mind when in the workplace.
Just a few of our highlights include our next generation safety pen needle, Unifine SafeControl which features an active safety guard to cover the needle after injection to protect HCPs from needlestick injury. Our venous blood collection range includes Unistik ShieldLock with a user centric design and thumb-activated safety mechanism to give HCPs the peace of mind they need to perform with confidence.
References:
(1) Campbell , D. (2022) Burnout in doctors doubles chances of patient safety problems, study finds, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/14/burnout-in-doctors-doubles-chances-of-patient-safety-problems-study-finds (Accessed: March 6, 2023).
(2) Weigl, M. (2022) “Physician Burnout Undermines Safe Healthcare,” BMJ [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o2157.