Health and Safety in 2012: a review

Dec. 20, 2012 - PRLog -- Health and Safety in 2012: a review

2012 has been an interesting year for the health and safety industry. We’ve seen the HSE’s safety systems lauded for their role in delivering the Olympics safely, on time, without any fatalities and for keeping construction accidents to 0.16 per 100,000 hours worked on site, which is well under an industry average of 0.55.

European Safety Week brought management and employees together to improve safety and efficiency while the British Safety Council ran a campaign encouraging health and safety for young people.

Statistics published by the Health & Safety Executive revealed that the number of major injuries at work fell again in the year to March 2012, as did the number of incidences of work-related ill-health. Nevertheless, there were still 173 fatal injuries.

Sadly, there were still a number of high profile instances of health and safety issues, such as: “Norfolk company prosecuted after risk assessment failure.” With the right safety management systems, these issues can be avoided. And while events such as “The first Craigavon farm safety event” are to be commended there are still instances where foolishness abounds: “CCTV catches worker being lifted on forklift (http://www.shponline.co.uk/incourt-content/full/cctv-catc...).”

The Health & Safety Executive this year launched the Mythbusters panel (http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/top10myths.htm), which has proved both entertaining and infuriating. Lazily using health and safety as an excuse for prohibiting perfectly safe activities has undermined safety rules so much so that the government was happy to incorporate health & safety management into its ‘red tape’ category purely for the sake of a sound-bite (http://news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/Government-red-tape...).

That said, there remains much to be celebrated in the industry. At SHE Software we are looking forward to 2013 which we believe will present exciting opportunities in health and safety. We expect to see organisations placing more emphasis on health and safety and giving employees the confidence and means to do the same. At the start of the year we will begin our preparations for the Safety & Health Expo where general technology and safety management software will no doubt play a bigger role than ever.

Technology does far more than improve process management. It also makes it easier to be safe and reduces the burden on management and staff to comply. Software has changed the way many industries function and 2013 will be an historic year for the health and safety industry. Wishing you all a happy Christmas, from SHE Software.