Simply Put – Health and Safety at Work

Health and Safety at Work

In this week’s ‘Simply Put’ article, we’re going right back to basics, and looking at what we actually mean when we say ‘health and safety’ – and why it’s important.

What do you think of when you think of ‘health and safety’? 

This is another question we ask on our training courses. Very often, the answers include things like:

• risk assessments
• legislation
• paperwork
• hazards
• inspectors
• accidents

Whilst these things are all associated with the health and safety industry, they are jumping a little way ahead of defining health and safety. So let’s break it down.

• Health
  The World Health Organisation’s definition of ‘health’ is:
  ‘A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’
• Safety
  Safety is defined as:
  ‘The condition of being protected from danger, risk, or injury’.

Health and Safety at Work

Therefore health and safety at work is about keeping people well and safe from harm. Therefore, health and safety procedures are put in place to safeguard staff from becoming ill or being harmed as a result of activity at work.

Different workplaces demand different procedures. For example, the health and safety needs of an office-based business employing four people will be very different to the needs of a large construction site.

Why is health and safety important? 

The costs of poor health and safety are wide ranging.

The HSE’s 2013/14 annual report provides a number of interesting statistics into the cost of poor health and safety. These include:

• 28.2 million working days were lost due to work-related ill health or injury
• 629,000 injuries occurred at work during the period
• An estimated 2 million people were suffering from an illness they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work

Everyone deserves to work in places where risks to their health and safety are properly controlled. Whilst occupational health and safety has come a long way and reduced the occurrence of injuries and ill health in the workplace, there is still a long way to go.

So whilst procedures to improve health and safety practices at work might include things like risk assessments, legislation, paperwork and inspectors in order to reduce hazards and accidents – health and safety itself requires a much more basic definition.

Occupational health and safety is about stopping you getting injured or ill through work. If we start to think of health and safety in these terms, rather than as being about red tape and paperwork, we’re on the right track to having a positive attitude towards health and safety.