Olympic health and safety study reveals £7m savings

July 26, 2012 - PRLog -- Estimates were made of the likely economic benefits of having a team of occupational hygienist available on site. The scale of the savings was estimated to run in to millions of pounds.
The occupational hygiene team service saved contractors, employers, the government and individual’s money by;
•   Reducing the downtime involved in dealing with health risks
•   Minimising exposure to health risks, and thereby reducing the costs of sickness absence (saving the project up to £7m over three years) and reducing the future costs of work-related ill-health (potentially as much as £81m for a workforce of this size)
Working with the leadership team of each project, the hygienist adopted a range of strategies to prevent work related ill-health occurring. They provided support on site so that design, method statements and risk assessments were created with a focus on eliminating and reducing exposure to health risks in the work place.
Based on an annual investment of £350,000 for the provision of occupational Hygiene services, the service needed only to reduce absence rates amongst the workforce by an average of 30 minutes per worker to pay for its self. In fact the benefits of using the occupational hygiene team outweighed the cost involved. If work-related sickness absence and exposure rates were reduced by two-thirds compared to industry averages (in line with the reductions in safety incidents recorded on the site), the return on investment could have been as much as £7 per £1 investment in reduced sickness absence costs.

This study clearly highlights the benefits of work place health to businesses. The costs associated with accidents and ill health in the work place can be avoided by investing in work place health.
OHS provide full Occupational hygiene services. To book a consultation with one of our highly qualified occupational hygienists please contact Nicholas Etchells on 07435 787 310 or nicholasetchells@ohs.co.uk.

Please visit www.ohs.co.uk for a full list of our occupational hygiene services.