New research commissioned by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), Europe’s leading body for health and safety professionals, has linked investment in safety professionals with cuts in accident rates.

The research was carried out by Glasgow Caledonian University.  They reviewed data from over 100 contractors in the construction industry who collectively employed over 200,000 workers.  Dr Hare, one of the team that conducted the study, said "What we found particularly staggering was that, on average, the more qualified in health and safety the line manager in an organisation is, the lower the accident rate.  This shows that investing in health and safety training does have an impact, benefiting employees, and helping to boost productivity by reducing the considerable disruption caused by an incident causing death or injury."

Companies with line managers with higher levels of health and safety training and qualifications have the lowest accident rates.  Those with less than two days training have accident rates more than eight times higher than companies with the most highly trained or qualified line managers.

The research provides evidence for other interventions that pay dividends in improving health and safety.  For instance, companies with health and safety personnel who vet or assess sub-contractors have accident rates almost 60% lower than those that don’t.

In the UK over 200 people are killed each year in accidents at work and over one million are injured.  Preventing accidents and ill health at work should be a key priority for all organisations.  Providing good quality training is clearly one of the areas that can help reduce accidents and occupational ill health. 
Managers and supervisors they will need to know how to identify hazards and control risks from the work they are managing.  They need to understand the health and safety policy, how they fit into managing health and safety and may need training in specific processes.

Employees also require training to carry out their jobs.  They too need to know about your policies and procedures, what part they play and how they can raise any health and safety concerns with you.

• When considering training, you should always take into account the capabilities, previous training and experience and knowledge of employees.  You need to consider employees with specific training needs such as:
• new recruits who are not familiar with your organisation
• people changing jobs
• young employees who may not be familiar with the world of work
• people who are working on specific projects who may need different or improved skills.

Providing health and safety information and training will help any employer to:

• reduce the risk that employees will be injured or made ill by the work they do
• develop a positive health and safety culture, where safe and healthy working becomes second nature to everyone
• find out how to manage health and safety better
• reduce costs related to absences, lost production and claims.

Ray Hurst, the outgoing IOSH president said "Although this (the Scottish study) is the first such UK study, these results support the case that health and safety is good for people and good for business.  Skimping on safety has a very negative human impact indeed.  It’s time to act now to get proper health and safety investment and training across all employment sectors in the UK”.

System Concepts offers two IOSH accredited training courses that increase the competency of managers: Managing Safely and Safety for Senior Executives.  We also offer specifically tailored training courses that fit your organisation’s needs.  We have award winning trainers who make health and safety training engaging and fun. as well as valuable to your employees.

We also provide a wide range of consultancy services, such as working with clients to improve their management of contractors, including vetting prospective contractors and auditing existing ones.
If you would like more information on the services we offer, contact us.

You can find out more about the study at www.gcal.ac.uk/risc/researchproject.html