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IOSH gets its message across…
Manchester Evening News, Birmingham Post, Evening Chronicle,
Express and Echo, Leicester Mercury, The Journal, Shropshire Star –
Telford, Herald Express, Western Morning News, Evening
Telegraph
IOSH President John Holden wrote about International Workers
Memorial Day, which takes place every year on 28 April. He
said:
“Internationally, 2.2 million workers die
annually as a direct result of their work. These terrible figures
explain why the government has decided to officially recognise
International Workers Memorial Day.
“It’s an opportunity to remember those whose
lives have been needlessly cut short by their work, and to reflect
on the loss suffered by their families. The day not only asks us to
remember those who’ve died, but also to reflect on how we go about
our work.
“I urge people to spend a few minutes
thinking about how they could make their workplaces
safer.”
Daily Telegraph
Caroline Holden, IOSH Commercial Affairs Director, spoke to the
Daily Telegraph about the business advantages health and safety
training can have, and how employing health and safety managers or
consultants can make a fundamental difference to the bottom line of
a company. She said:
“Of course, nobody actually wants staff to be
injured in the workplace. There’s a very human element of somebody
and their family suffering and possibly being so badly injured it
alters the rest of their life.
“However, in a business sense, there are
several factors why companies want to reduce accidents. Accidents
are a terrible time for the employer too because they find there’s
a lot of time and attention diverted to dealing with the incident
that they hadn’t planned on. There’s also a bad impact on staff
morale and, of course, you end up missing a skilled person for a
period of time – who may be very difficult to replace temporarily
while they’re recovering.”
“Successful companies want to show they’re
caring and they take the wellbeing of their staff, clients and
contractors seriously.
“So training staff to be safe in the
workplace, to recognise where there are potential hazards and come
up with solutions and then policies to ensure those solutions are
maintained, is a very important way of demonstrating that the
employer is humane and simply doesn’t want people to be
hurt.”
ContractorsCompare.com, Aviva Risk Management Solutions, Safety
Sign Supplies, Arco
As from 15 February 2010, those organisations found guilty of
corporate manslaughter stand to be fined at least £500,000 and
could have to pay millions of pounds under new sentencing
guidelines. Most will also get potentially far-reaching ‘publicity
orders’, requiring guilty parties to publicise their offence and
punishment. For other health and safety offences causing death,
fines could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds and will
rarely be less than £100,000.
Richard Jones, IOSH Policy and Technical Director, stated that
the harsher fines and punishments for those convicted don’t go far
enough. He said:
“We believe using percentage of annual
turnover (or equivalent) in setting fines would have helped ensure
convicted organisations of different sizes felt the financial
impact more equally.
“Remedial orders should also address the
vital need for deep-seated cultural issues to be tackled where
these have contributed to the offence.
“Based on regulator guidance, we say this
could include measures such as compulsory training or retraining in
health and safety management for directors and senior managers,
appropriate use of behavioural safety programmes, the introduction
of third-party audit and access to competent health and safety
advice.”
ContractorsCompare.com
IOSH President John Holden shared his concerns about how our
society appears to be losing confidence when it comes to managing
day-to-day risk and that more opportunities need to be made to let
young people learn about this. He said:
“Many valuable life skills and benefits can
be gained from learning to cope with risks in a managed
environment, so it’s important this is encouraged as much as
possible.”