safety notes

[venkipola]

HEALTH & SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Objectives
• To define the concepts and components of a health and safety management system;
• To outline recent developments in health and safety management including the development of OHSAS18001 and accreditation.

INTRODUCTION
Many of the industrially developed countries of the world have seen injury and illness rates decline over the last 50 years. However these rates have generally reached a plateau over the last decade. This fact, coupled with the realisation of the role of management and organisational (latent) failures in accident causation, has lead to new approaches in managing health and safety, most notably the use of a systems approach. The importance of managing health and safety has been highlighted in recent official reports of major accidents and has received increasing emphasis in OH&S legislation.
A Health and Safety Management System can be defined as ‘the means by which an organisation controls risk through the management process

The BSI define a OH&S management system as ‘part of the overall management system that facilities the management of the OH&S risks associated with the business of the organisation. This includes the organisational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources for developing and achieving, reviewing and maintaining the organisation’s OH&S policy.
1.0 What is meant by a systems approach?
A systems approach to management is based on system theories developed primarily in the natural and social sciences. Four elements common to general systems theories are input, process, output and feedback. Systems are also classed as being either open or closed.
• An open system is one where there are identifiable pathways where the system interacts with the external environment and is subject to external influences. In health and safety these influences include legislation, public opinion and the economy.
• Closed systems do not interact with the environment and so their ability to adapt or respond to changing internal conditions is limited.
A management system is an open system, and based on the following approach:

In the past organisations put a great deal of emphasis on safety programmes. These are different from health and safety management systems in a number of ways:
• Programmes are focused on compliance with the standards/regulations within and do not have the strong or any feedback mechanisms where the contents are adjusted or modified to accommodate changing circumstances. Systems have this facility.
• The performance of a programme is based on compliance with the system and with trailing (or reactive) indicators such as the number of accidents, injuries etc. In a systems approach performance is also measured from the input and process components of the system.
. Their approach to health and safety management has six elements:
• Policy
• Organising
• Planning and implementing
• Measuring performance
• Reviewing Performance
• Auditing