With all the new OHSAS health and safety systems to the 2007 standard 18001 becoming more popular, what types of things should you be thinking of if you are considering setting a system up in the near future or even in the mid term.
Well first of all one requires is a health and safety policy. This is something that we should have anyway if we have more than 5 employees. We should consider making it our own, ensuring that it reflects our own company with our own industry risks perhaps showing through and our management's concerns for the workers.
Then we should be looking at is setting objectives and targets. This is the basis of all good management, knowing what you want to achieve and the basic steps towards getting there. So how do we determine what our objectives and targets should be?
The advice from Managing Safety the Systems Way, the guide that helps us set up systems and published by BSI is that we should look at various guide words.
Ø "increase / improve", - and they suggest that we look at increasing and improving "near miss reporting; machinery safeguards, and training". Most of us are guilty of forgetting to report things, particularly when nothing bad actually happened, but more frequent awareness training reminds everyone of their duty in this respect.
Ø "maintain / continue", with suggestions being, "workplace inspections, training accident and near miss reporting". The role of good housekeeping cannot be underestimated in terms of health and safety and regular workplace inspections can assist in maintaining standards.
Ø "reduce ? hazardous conditions, specific hazardous events, e.g. relating to slips, trips and falls". Perhaps this could be reducing the number of times chemicals are decanted or transported to the workstation, remembering of course safe storage when they are there.
Ø "introduce - risk assessments, an emergency plan, a system for active monitoring, strategic OH & S training for senior manager, permit to work systems for specified tasks". Emergency plans would include your fire evacuation procedure, and as well as having one in place, have you considered when you are conducting your drills, putting up a notice that one exit is blocked as if the fire was there and seeing how quickly everyone then gets out? It's a simple exercise and helps mimic the real event better.
Ø "eliminate or substitute". All hazardous events, usage of specified hazardous substance, use of damaged and unsuitable equipment. Perhaps introducing more modern safety guards that ensure machines do not work unless they are closed.
If you look at each of these headings then you should be able to get an extensive list of potential objectives, potential targets for your own business. Can you tackle them all at once? Almost certainly not, so this would be a good time to put into place the employee involvement and consultation aspects of the standard and decide which ones to tackle first and by when. Now you are further along the road to setting up your own system.
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