MESH have carried out Auditing & Inspection services for companies large and small throughout the UK.
The old adage that if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it applies to health and safety the same as any other management activity. Measurement is essential if you are to improve health and safety performance. This requires the use of both reactive monitoring of accidents, ill health and incidents and the use of proactive systems that monitor ongoing performance.
The use of inspections and audits both have a role to play in proactive management of health and safety.
Inspections provide organisations with information on how effectively they are controlling risks, and how well they are developing a positive Health and Safety culture. They can identify problems before an accident occurs and provide an opportunity to make the necessary improvements before things go wrong.
Inspections should be done by people who are competent to identify relevant hazards and risks and who can assess the conditions found. The key steps to a well thought out inspection will include:
- Well designed inspection forms
- A system of issuing and tracking improvement actions
- Periodic analysis of findings to identify common issues or trends which might reveal weaknesses in Health and Safety systems.
Audits are one of the final steps in health and safety management and provide organisations with a feedback loop on the effectiveness of Health and Safety systems in place. Organisations are often subject to audit, e.g. finance, quality etc. and this discipline can be applied to health and safety to good effect.
Effective auditing systems are usually those that:
- Are carried out by a competent person or team who have received specific training
- Have auditors who are independent of the area being audited
- Focus on key elements of the Health and Safety systems in place.
Click here to see some examples of situations in which companies that we represent have improved their Health and Safety systems through inspections and audits.
MESH Consultants provides auditing and inspection services for a number of clients throughout the UK, which enables those clients to learn by those experiences and put procedures in place that avoid similar experiences in the future.
For an informal confidential discussion about how our auditing and inspection services can help your business please do contact us without obligation.
