Inner Profile

By William Penworthy

 Health & safety management is not simply another hoop companies are being expected to jump through for the sake of bureaucracy. Last year alone over 29 million days were lost due to work related accidents, work related ill-health or workplace injury. Nearly 5 million of these were accidents directly attributable to either misuse of equipment at work, poorly maintained equipment at work or inappropriate use of workplace equipment. Safe Equipment Management Systems, otherwise known as SEMs, are an essential tool used by businesses to try to lower work related accidents and injuries.

Not only do these millions of lost working days cost companies dearly in themselves, but in many cases employees are increasingly encouraged to take legal action against employers if it can be demonstrated that the employer was in some way negligible. Unfortunately for the employer this is all too often very possible, directly because existing safety management systems are woefully inadequate.

But the problem from the point of view of the management is that whilst they recognise their legal obligations under health & safety at work regulations, putting these into practise can be greatly challenging. With many different Safe Equipment Management Systems available, it would seem that the choice is there. In truth, however, it is far from being as simple as choosing a SEMS and rolling it out across the company.

For one thing, health & safety management systems are frequently difficult to comprehend, awkward to implement and the cheques, paperwork and procedures can be time consuming and confusing, leading to misinterpreted procedures, incomplete practises and even elements of the system being ignored entirely.

This problem is only compounded by the fact that many of these SEMS provide incomplete or inconsistent solutions for different aspects of the company, meaning that employees are required to learn, understand and implement a range of different, often conflicting systems. With so much emphasis on effective time management, targets and work rates, such confusion inevitably results in safety management systems being ignored by workers, or confirmation entries made without regard to the checklist or procedures they represent.

The danger is that if too much trust is being placed in an existing safety management system or combination of safety management systems, often potential dangers or hazards can be overlooked. Until, that is, an accident occurs, litigation ensues and expenses spiral.

Another challenge facing management is the need for regular auditing of health & safety management procedures, systems and implementations. With an inconsistent Safe Equipment Management System, or combination of conflicting or contrasting systems, this can be almost impossible to achieve with anything close to an acceptable and valuable level of accuracy. With many workers falsifying entries in order to save time or bypass confusing safety management protocols, audit results are frequently little more than fiction, and provide very little value in terms of helping to guard against accidents that are waiting to happen.

Of course, it goes without saying that insurance companies are well aware of these problems, and this is one significant reason why insurance premiums are invariably so high. However, insurance companies are aware of those safety management systems which do work, which do provide adequate levels of protection, efficient and accurate auditing, and really do help to lower the risk of injury or accident at work. In such cases where insurance companies are made aware that a company or business is implementing such a system, insurance premiums are much lower.

It makes good sense to combine the benefits of lower insurance premiums, reduced chance of injury, accident and the inevitable consequences, and increased accuracy and value of auditing by implementing one of these recognised SEMS. One such example is the ‘Good to Go’ safety management system provided by Intersafety. The Good to Go safety management system provides a simple to use, quick to implement range of workplace safety solutions, and which provides a consistent system of procedures across the range.

Safe Equipment Management Systems have to be able to provide workers with a system which is consistent, easily understandable, quick and convenient to implement, and which cannot easily be overlooked, ignored or falsified. At the same time it also has to ensure that the system provides a full and valuable audit trail so that a full audit can be carried out at any time, and which is quick and easy to undertake, providing genuine information which can be used by management to assess the current status of the workplace and highlight any requirements.

Health and safety management is certainly not easy, but with Intersafety’s Good to Go Safe Equipment Management System, the chances are that your company will see lower rates of injuries, lower numbers of accidents, and lower insurance premiums too.

Health & Safety Management http://www.intersafety.co.uk Safe Equipment Management Systems

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