Planning your Health and Safety Management

Planning is the key to ensuring that health and safety measures really work. Planning involves the setting of measurable objectives to be achieved, the identification of hazards, the assessment of risk, the implementation of standards of performance and the development of a positive safety culture. These things will not happen by themselves, they need to be carefully planned, co-ordinated and implemented and understood by all.

The key elements of a successful Health and Safety Management Strategy are:

• Policy
• Organisation
• Planning and implementing
• Measuring performance and
• Reviewing and auditing

The results of planning need to be recorded in writing. As we say time and time again within the site, ‘if its not written down it never happened!’ You should be pro-active in your management, continually checking that standards are being met. Don’t wait until something goes wrong an accident, injury or dangerous occurrence before you decide you need to review your safety procedures. Be proactive, not reactive!

For example:

• identification of hazards and the assessment of risks and the means for their elimination/control
• means of complying with relevant and current legislation
• agreement of health and safety targets with managers, supervisors and employees
• establishment of a purchasing and supply policy which takes health and safety into account
• design of tasks, processes, equipment, products and services with regard to health and safety
• establishment of safe systems of work
• establishment of procedures to deal with serious and imminent danger
• means of ensuring co-operation with other employers, contractors and neighbours etc.
• setting of standards against which health and safety performance can be measured

Standards help to build a positive culture within the workforce and to control risks. They should identify who does what, when and with what results.

Standards should be set for:

• Premises, places of work and for environmental control
• Plant and substances, purchase, supply, transport, storage and use
• Procedures, design of jobs and the way work is carried out
• People, training and supervision
• Products and services, design, delivery, transport and storage

The Health and Safety Executive suggest asking the following questions:

• Do you have a health and safety plan?
• Is health and safety always considered before any new work is started?
• Have you identified hazards and assessed risks to your own staff and the public, and set standards for premises, plant, substances, procedures, people and products?
• Do you have a plan to deal with serious or/and imminent danger, e.g. fires, process deviations etc.?
• Are the standards implemented and risks effectively controlled?

Measurable objectives and performance standards, with regard to physical resources, human resources and information, need to be set in relation to the input to the organisation, the process carried on within the organisation and the output from the organisation. Active and reactive monitoring arrangements need to ensure that the objectives and performance standards are being met in practice. Auditing should ensure that the whole system for setting, implementing and measuring standards is effective.

Here we are offering just an introduction to planning your health and safety, within our members area you will find all the tools to enable you to carry out all the tasks mentioned above, and of course, there you will also be able to ‘Ask the Expert’ should you have a question or situation that needs clarifying.

Remember Health and Safety is a journey not a destination, safe site safe workers!