NEBOSH

MANAGEMENT OF HEALTH AND SAFETY

UNIT IG1:
For: NEBOSH International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety

Open Book Examination

Available for 24 hours

Guidance to learners

This is an open book examination. It is not invigilated, and you are free to use any learning
resources to which you have access, eg your course notes, or a website, etc.

By submitting this completed assessment for marking, you are declaring it is entirely your own work.
Knowingly claiming work to be your own when it is someone else’s work is malpractice, which carries
severe penalties. This means that you must not collaborate with or copy work from others. Neither
should you ‘cut and paste’ blocks of text from the Internet or other sources.

The examination begins with a scenario to set the scene. You will then need to complete a series of
tasks based on this scenario. Each task will consist of one or more questions.

Your responses to most of these tasks should wholly, or partly, draw on relevant information from the
scenario. The task will clearly state the extent to which this is required.

The marks available are shown in brackets to the right of each question, or part of each question.
This will help guide you to the amount of information required in your response. In general, one mark
is given for each correct technical point that is clearly demonstrated. Avoid writing too little as this
will make it difficult for the Examiner to award marks. Single word answers or lists are unlikely to
gain marks as this would not normally be enough to show understanding or a connection with the
scenario.

You are not expected to write more than 3 000 words in total.
Try to distribute your time and word count proportionately across all tasks.
It is recommended that you use the answer template.
Please attempt ALL tasks.

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SCENARIO

Bright Beginnings (BB) is an organisation that runs a nationwide chain of childcare nurseries for
children aged 0-5 years. BB has recently taken over the ownership of a privately-owned nursery in a
large town. The new nursery site consists of one building and two fenced-in garden spaces (garden
A and garden B). There is also a car park with delivery access and a waste storage area.

In the building there are four classrooms, one for each age group: 0-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5 years.
There is also a reception area, kitchen, a workers’ rest area, and toilet facilities. Age groups 0-2 and
2-3 have access to garden A, and age groups 3-4 and 4-5 have access to garden B.

The previous owner was also the manager of the nursery. Under the new ownership, the deputy
manager (DM) who has worked at this nursery for two years, is temporarily carrying out the
manager’s duties. The rest of the workforce is made up of 16 full-time workers, four part-time
apprentices, and two kitchen workers. Four of the full-time workers are room supervisors.

BB’s head office senior management team (SMT) intends to review the current organisational
processes and work patterns at this newly-acquired nursery. Additionally, they aim to increase
profitability at this site. The SMT also intends to determine the current state of health and safety
management at this nursery, so that they can make a comparison with their nurseries in other
locations.

You are an experienced health and safety advisor working for BB. The SMT has asked you to carry
out a full review of health and safety management at this nursery. This review is arranged to take
place a week after the official handover.

The review
On the day of the review, you arrive at the nursery. Using the intercom at the front door, you let the
worker at reception know that you have arrived for a meeting with the DM. The worker lets you into
the building and you sign the visitors’ book. They give you a visitor badge to wear while on site. The
worker tells you that the DM will be in the office, as usual, and takes you to see them.

The DM greets you and begins to discuss health and safety at the nursery. You ask to see all of the
health and safety documentation. They unlock a filing cabinet and retrieve a thin folder, together with
the accident records. They explain that this is all the paperwork that they could find when they were
told about the review. The office telephone rings, and the DM says that they need to answer the call.
The DM has been waiting to hear from a recruitment agency about filling several vacant job roles.
They joke that they should make this their full-time job because it feels like they are constantly
replacing workers. They pass you the folder and the accident records, and ask you to wait in the
workers’ rest area next door.

While sitting at a table in the workers’ rest area, you begin to look through the documents. In the
folder, you find a generic risk assessment of the nursery that only refers to the building, and a health
and safety policy, both dated January 2020. Reading through the health and safety policy you notice
that a local school’s name is referred to throughout the document, and that the policy is signed by the
previous owner.

On reviewing the accident records, you find a concerning number of near misses and accidents have
been recorded. Most recently, one accident involving a climbing frame in garden B. It states that a
young apprentice was injured during the accident. You return to the DM’s office and ask permission
to look around the nursery. The DM tells you that you will need to be accompanied, as certain areas
of the building are restricted and require electronic security cards to access. They ask a worker to
show you around, as they need to stay in the office while awaiting further telephone calls from the
recruitment agency.

Worker A arrives and takes you on a tour of the building and outdoor spaces. You note that most of
the walls inside the building are decorated with teaching materials and crafts. However, no health

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and safety posters, policies, or emergency notices are visible. As worker A leads you to the first
classroom, you have to step around several large boxes that are partially across the doorway.

You ask worker A about the recent accident involving the apprentice. They confirm that it happened
two months ago on the apprentice’s first day of work. Worker A explains that after the apprentice’s
short induction with the DM, they were immediately sent to work in the 4-5 age group classroom.
Since the nursery was understaffed on that day, the apprentice was put in charge of a small group of
children.

The apprentice decided that as the weather was nice, they would take their group of children outside
to garden B. Worker A said that the apprentice must not have known about the rule for having two
workers present in garden areas any time children are taken outside. While outside, the apprentice
went to help a child down from a climbing frame. The apprentice climbed up two rungs of the
wooden climbing frame ladder, and when they stepped onto the third rung and stretched to help the
child climb down, the rung snapped. The apprentice fell, landed on their wrist, and cried out in pain.
This alerted other workers inside the building. No one knew what to do as there was no first-aider on
site, so the DM sent the apprentice home. Worker A explains that the apprentice later went to the
local hospital where it was confirmed that the apprentice had a fractured wrist.

On examination of the climbing frame in garden B, you see the space of the missing rung about 2ft
(61cm) up the ladder. The pieces of the broken ladder rung are still on the floor below. Some of the
remaining climbing rungs of the ladder are loose and show signs of wear. Worker A said that “we
had been requesting a new climbing frame for over a year. However, the previous owner kept
refusing the requests and told us to use our common sense if we had an issue. We gave up asking,
so we prevented children from playing on that climbing frame. Sadly, the apprentice did not know
this”.

At the end of the tour, worker A escorts you back to the office. You thank the DM and worker A for
their time and confirm that you will produce a report for the SMT, as the team are interested in the
findings of the review. The SMT will contact the DM soon. As you are leaving, you overhear the DM
saying to worker A that they are happy the review is over as there are more important tasks for them
to be getting on with.

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Task 1: Health and safety morals

1 What was unacceptable about the moral management of health and safety at
the nursery? (11)
Note: You should support your answer, where applicable, using relevant
information from the scenario.

Task 2: The approach taken to the review

2 (a) What is positive about the review? (8)

Note: Your answers must be based on the scenario only.

(b) What is negative about the DM’s approach to the review? (2)
Note: Your answers must be based on the scenario only.

Task 3: Benefits of combined worker and employer involvement

3 As part of developing a formal safety management system, you encourage the

SMT of Bright Beginnings (BB) to consult with the nursery workforce.

What are the potential benefits of worker and employer involvement in

workplace health and safety at the nursery? (11)
Note: You should support your answer, where applicable, using relevant
information from the scenario.

Task 4: Accident investigation procedure and communicating health and safety

4 (a) Why should the scene of the accident have been secured immediately
after the accident? (7)
Note: You should support your answer, where applicable, using relevant
information from the scenario.

(b) How could improvements in communication have helped to prevent the

accident? (6)
You should consider verbal, written and visual communications in your
answer.
Note: You should support your answer, where applicable, using relevant
information from the scenario.

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Task 5: Identifying the influence of organisational and job factors

5 (a) Comment on organisational factors that might have negatively influenced

health and safety behaviour at the nursery. (17)
Note: Your answers must be based on the scenario only.

(b) What job factors are likely to have influenced the behaviour of the injured
worker? (11)
Note: You should support your answer, where applicable, using relevant
information from the scenario.

Task 6: Determining uninsured costs incurred from the accident

6 What would the possible uninsured costs be for the nursery from this accident? (12)
Note: You should support your answer, where applicable, using relevant
information from the scenario.

Task 7: Determining the benefits of inspections

7 How could carrying out health and safety inspections, prior to this accident
occurring, have benefitted the nursery? (15)
Note: You should support your answer, where applicable, using relevant
information from the scenario.

End of examination

Now follow the instructions on submitting your answers.

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