Health and safety challenges

One of the UK's largest annual gatherings of health and safety experts and advisors took place in Glasgow last week (23 - 24 April 2003).

'Professionals in Partnership' was the theme at the Institution of Occupational Health & Safety (IOSH) conference held at Glasgow's Exhibition and Conference Centre. This wide-ranging event highlighted the difficulties of injury and ill health among Britain's workforce.

Opening the conference, IOSH president Eleanor Lawson told delegates: "As a profession, we face many challenges - for example, in helping to meet the challenges laid down in the government's 'Revitalising Health and Safety and Securing Health Together' programmes.

"To ensure that the organisations for which we work and government and society as a whole, recognise that IOSH has much to offer in helping them achieve their key objectives, we will increasingly need to work and develop relationships with other disciplines."

Delivering the keynote speech was Hans-Horst Konkolewsky, director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. He highlighted the main challenges facing Europe, pointing out that each year there are 4.7 million accidents at work which result in more than 3 days absence. In economic terms this means European member states are losing between 185 and 270 billion euros per annum due to employee absences that could be avoided.

Aiming to tackle these problems are the 'European Employment Guidelines' drafted in 2003. According to Mr Konkolewsky, these policies aim to achieve, in particular, a "15% overall reduction in the incidence rate of accidents at work, and a 25% reduction for high risk sectors in each member state."

One of the main areas of work in Europe on the subject of health and safety is the Community Safety Strategy 2002-2006. This document has been carefully developed to prioritise the health and safety policy agenda. For example, over the next 12 months, the EU has commissioned a 'social partner' consultation on stress and a consultation on violence may follow.

European guidelines are of course one thing, but Mr Konkolewsky realises the difficulty is enforcing compliance within the member states:

"Countries must strengthen their enforcement of occupational health and safety, provide guidance and improve training and most importantly, promote the reduction of accidents at work," he stressed.

Europe has therefore set the benchmark for standards, directing its member states to deliver. This conference highlighted the importance the UK is placing on the subject; explaining what targets the government has set and how businesses can best achieve them.

Our feature reports on conference sessions on stress, workforce participation in health and safety, musculoskeletal disorders, and corporate responsibility…

Feature article by Laura Montgomery