Be Part of the Health and Safety Solution

 

 

 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have developed a new strategy to encourage everyone to work together to reduce the number of people killed, injured or made ill by their or other people’s work.  It’s called “Be part of the solution” and they are asking organisations and individuals to sign a pledge to show their commitment to improving health and safety.

The objectives of the strategy are to:

• reduce the number of work-related fatalities, injuries and cases of ill health
• gain widespread recognition of what real health and safety is about
• motivate all those in the health and safety system to improve performance
• ensure that those who fail in their health and safety duties are held to account.

What does this mean to us?

The HSE have set out ten goals to meet these objectives.  Some will be initiated by the HSE and we will feel their impact later.  But we, as employers and employees, can work on some of the goals straight away.

Show strong leadership to champion the importance of, and a common sense approach to, health and safety at work

Health and safety needs to be lead from the top.  Being a good leader requires a wide range of skills.  Training can help give senior managers the confidence to show strong leadership and help them understand the real commercial benefits of good health and safety.  Try courses such as the IOSH approved Safety for Senior Executives.

Focus on the core aims of health and safety, to help risk makers and managers distinguish between real health and safety issues and trivial or ill-informed criticism

Too much time and effort is wasted on minor or non-existent health and safety issues, rather than concentrating on the real risks that harm people.  Again, training is critical to help managers know what really matters and to give them the confidence to make the right decisions.  Courses such as the IOSH approved Managing Safely provide a thorough grounding for anyone who has to manage risk or resources.

Increase competence, to enable greater ownership and profiling of risk, thereby promoting sensible and proportionate risk management

All organisations need competent health and safety advice.  If you don’t have the necessary technical expertise in-house, you can bring in specialist consultants to help.
Training in specific areas of health and safety such as display screen equipment (DSE) and manual handling risk assessments will allow managers and employees to take responsibility for sensibly managing risk in their areas.

Increase worker involvement and consultation in health and safety in all workplaces

Involving workers has a positive effect on health and safety.  Developing a genuine partnership between management and employees will encourage trust and co-operation, and help you solve health and safety problems.
Review your policies and procedures to make sure that workers are involved in all stages of your health and safety programme.  Don’t forget to involve your employees in the review to make sure that your procedures will be effective. 

Target health issues to reduce work-related ill health

Tackling health risks at work will not only make your workers healthier but will reduce sickness absence.  You can prevent musculoskeletal disorders due to using computers or manual handling, and work-related stress, by implementing ergonomic programmes.
And many people can be helped back into work with the right support, improving their quality of life, staff morale and your profits. 

Create a risk profile and set priorities to concentrate on activities that will deliver significant improvements in health and safety.

Use your health and safety audits and risk assessments in a positive way to help you set business priorities and improve performance – not just to tick the boxes in case of an accident.

Why bother?

The main reason is to stop harming people.  But poor health and safety has other costs.  About 34 million working days were lost in 2007/08 due to work-related accidents and ill health.  These actions will not only reduce the number of people damaged by work, but will also give real business benefits: improved productivity, increased workforce commitment and enhanced reputation. 

There is also the law.  This is clear – those who create risks are responsible for managing them.  And the HSE is also quite clear that legal compliance is the minimum acceptable standard, not a goal to aspire to.  This is reinforced by the first goal in their strategy, which is to investigate work-related accidents and ill health and take enforcement action to prevent harm and secure justice when appropriate.

Can you sign and fulfil the pledge?

To quote the HSE: “To be truly effective, health and safety has to be an everyday process supported by all as an integral part of workplace culture.”  Everyone needs to be committed to doing this in order to make the strategy work.

You can find out more about the HSE’s strategy and pledge at http://www.hse.gov.uk/strategy/index.htm

Need some help?

We have many years of experience in helping businesses improve their performance by implementing these suggestions, and others like them.

We will work with you in any way you want, providing ideas and strategies, picking up individual projects or even providing full time competent support.  If you would like to know more, please contact contact us

Last updated: August, 2009

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