Health and Safety gone mad!!!

DVardysShadow

Tis good to see that people here do not buy it being Health and Safety and that genuine Health and Safety is held in good regard. Jobsworth's should be put in their place for misusing valid concerns to cover up trivial stupidity. Other things which get misused in this way include Child Protection, Prevention of Terrorism, Human Rights - tour lives would be worse if these things were not looked after, but they are not to be used as excuses for the inexcusable.

geordieracer

What a stupid predicament to find yourself in and there really is no excuse for people to act like that...

Mind you companies are probably running scared now we are following america with the 'I WANT COMPO FOR EVERYTHING' malarky thats about... bloody channels clogged upw ith ambulance chasers... And then the real H&S issues get muddied in with teh sh1te ones and it makes the whole act look daft

Errata

geordieracer wrote: »

What a stupid predicament to find yourself in and there really is no excuse for people to act like that...

Mind you companies are probably running scared now we are following america with the 'I WANT COMPO FOR EVERYTHING' malarky thats about... bloody channels clogged upw ith ambulance chasers... And then the real H&S issues get muddied in with teh sh1te ones and it makes the whole act look daft

Which is why Costa's insurance company won't cover them for suypplying free hot water and why Costa's name would be mud if they started charging for hot water.

tandraig

I used to work as canvasser for ambulance chaser - been sat here trying to think how a comp claim could work for plain hot water versus hot water with tea bag. nope - I havent come up with anything! I had a claim fail where a toddler was scalded with a hot pot of tea a customer tipped over him (i mean badly scalded) as he was in a cafe and people could be expected to walk around with pots of boiling water! so where are these people coming from? we tried all ways to get this toddler compensation - but it couldnt be done!

mattymoo

Grandmasu wrote: »

Have just had a call from the local Costa Coffee manager apologising for the incident yesterday. He explained that there had been a big insurance claim in London when someone had been scalded with hot water and this had cost many thousand pounds.

Apparently the insurance company will not pay out if anyone is scalded by water as they would not have paid for it. I asked why then they did not make a nominal charge or allow me to pay for two pots with the tea bag left out.

He told me that the ruling was that no insurance could be paid if the injury was with plain water. He said I could drink the tea and bring the pot up for refill as long as I left the teabag in the pot! I told him that was not what my Mother wanted and that although I appreciated his position the rule was ludicrous.

He has offered me an opportunity to have tea and cakes "on the house" when I next went but told him that I had no intention of returning as I would still be unable to have the hot water I desired. I also asked him to pass my observations up to his head office about the stupidity of this ruling, I did not "rant" at him as I felt he probably agreed with me.

Gosh what a fuss over a pot of water but I still find the whole experience incredible, if I had not experienced it first hand would have thought it was one of these incidents from which urban myths are born

Sorry but you've just had even more BS from the local manager.

I work for a Lloyd's syndicate, advising their clients on H&S so I get to see both angles here.

As others have said, this is not a H&S legislation issue, it is someone's misinterpretation of H&S matters.

Neither is it an insurance issue. To claim that the insurance would be invalidated if they served hot water is utter hokum. It's like the railway industry saying "you cannot claim against our insurance if you have a saver ticket, only a full price ticket". You do not even need to purchase anything to claim from Costa's insurance - if they have been negligent, they are liable in a court of law and the insurers would meet the costs and damages.

It could be the case that they have had a large claim in the past but rather than taking the knee jerk reaction of banning supply of hot water, they should have looked at the root cause and perhaps redesigned the container used. A wide, stable base with a height fill indicator would be a good starting point, so that when the milk bottle is inserted (for heating baby milk) the water content is not displaced over the lip of the container.

WhiteHorse

On many occasions these days we are told that it's 'the law' for some pettyfogging thing or other. In truth it's no such thing. It's just some jumped up jobsworth nonentity making it up as they go along.

Just ask them to produce 'the law' or at least some written instruction from their employers. They never can.

nexuss

The manager is just doing what he is told.

Grandmasu

I agree the manager and his staff were just doing as they were told which was why I did not get too annoyed with them. I sensed the manager was uncomfortable with what he was saying and did promise to take my comments to his superiors.

I certainly do not blame him just the people above him who expect him to implement such ludicrous rules. After all if he were to ignore them his job would be at risk and that would be unfair.

Yesterday I passed another Costa Coffee and was very tempted to go in and try and order the same just to see what happened but decided to go to a little tea shop instead where again I was happily served with a pot of tea and a pot of water!

vyle

I wonder if the insurance company takes swabs of any scalded areas to test for tea or coffee levels. If they run out of storylines for CSI, I think I have a script idea for them...