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Health & Safety Management - 3 Ways To Test Your Existing System

By: William Penworthy

When it comes to health & safety management, how can you tell if a system is really working or not? One good clue is evident when it is necessary to carry out a health & safety audit on all of your equipment. If the task looks Herculean, then it may well be that your system is unwieldy and difficult to manage.

If the audit takes more than a few minutes, then you're definitely making life harder than it needs to be. But perhaps even more importantly, any health & safety audit which takes a long time to work through is also likely to tell far less than the full storey.

A difficult to implement health & safety management system not only causes problems at the time of auditing, but is likely to be causing a number of problems on the shop floor, meaning that workers are likely to be either inadvertently misusing the system, or failing to complete it properly at all. In some cases health & safety management systems are so complex and convoluted that workers deliberately bypass the system and protocols, meaning that you effectively have no safety systems in place at all.

Should an accident occur, not only would this be terrible in itself, but as the employer you may well find that you are ultimately responsible. Claiming to have a health & safety management system in place will be of little good in defence if it is clearly demonstrated that the system was ineffective, confusing and easily misinterpreted, bypassed or applied inconsistently.

Inconsistent health & safety management is a common problem, the main reason being that many businesses and workplaces employ several different systems and procedures. This is necessary in cases where an existing health & safety management system which works well for heavy plant machinery is not useful or suitable when it comes to items such as ladders or scaffolding. In such cases, a separate health & safety system is employed for these areas.

Over the entire workplace it is not unusual to find that there are at least half a dozen different health & safety management systems in place, and this is the cause of many of the problems, and ultimately the likely cause of any accident waiting to happen. The more health & safety management systems in use, the more confusion and misunderstanding is likely to take place by workers needing to get on and use the equipment.

In cases where workers are being delayed or their workflow interrupted by conflicting or confusing health & safety management systems and procedures it is frequently the case that the systems are bypassed entirely. In many cases this is all too easy, and there is no clear way of identifying when this has been done, meaning that management are unaware that the system is being abused or misused.

This can in turn lead to complacency and a false sense of security and confidence in the existing systems. The only effective solution is to employ one single health & safety management system across the entire industry or workshop. With one single coherent system in place workers are no longer required to learn half a dozen different protocols and routines. Instead they need only become familiar with the basic principles and requirements of a single health & safety system, and this makes workflow easier and health & safety cheques more consistent and more likely to be followed.

But what is also necessary is to ensure that such a system is not open to abuse. Having one single system across the entire workplace is fine in itself, but only if it cannot easily be overlooked, avoided or misused. It is necessary therefore to employ a single, consistent health & safety management system across the entire business, and which cannot be misunderstood, overlooked or tampered with in a way which would devalue the system.

But there is yet another consideration, besides having one single coherent system which is also tamper proof and clear. Such a system should also provide a clear audit trail for management to pick up on at any time, providing meaningful and reliable data on all health & safety cheques, so that faulty equipment can be dealt with immediately, issues investigated and confidence in the existing equipment and its use well founded.

Is there such a health & safety management system? The 'Good to Go' health & safety management system manages to deliver on all three counts, providing businesses with a consistent solution across the entire workplace which is both clear and tamper proof, and which provides a clear and reliable audit trail throughout the workplace.

The 'Good to Go' health & safety management system could well help to avert a significant number of potential accidents and lawsuits, and is likely to prove both an effective and economical advantage to your business.

Article Source: http://www.gambling-articles.org

Health & Safety Management | www.intersafety.co.uk | Safe Equipment Management Systems

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