RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

April 14 , 2005
GOOD HEALTH AND SAFETY IS “HALLMARK OF BUSINESS SUCCESS”

Organisations that manage health and safety well are likely to excel in other areas of their business, delegates to a national conference organised by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents will be told.

The RoSPA Safety and Health at Work Congress Raising Standards, Embedding Excellence will be held at the NEC Hilton Birmingham Metropole, May 17-19. It is sponsored by EDF Energy.

Roger Bibbings, the Society’s Occupational Safety Adviser, said: “Increasingly, businesses large and small are being judged by the way they manage health and safety.

“A consistently high standard of health and safety risk management is seen as a hallmark of business effectiveness and professionalism. If a company’s health and safety management system is not working, the likelihood is that other parts of the organisation will be inefficient.

“Our conference will show how putting health and safety at the heart of the way an organisation is run can lead to success. There needs to be strong and visible leadership by senior managers, real involvement of every worker and their representatives in decision-making and effective use of professional advice.

“Legal compliance is no longer enough. The pursuit of health and safety excellence needs to be a key performance objective within every business.”

The congress programme will offer opportunities to examine: the real challenges associated with error and human behaviour; organisational capacity to investigate accidents and embed lessons learned; how to connect professional health and safety advice with other parts of the business agenda; and how to develop attitudes, knowledge and skills to ensure health and safety competence at all levels.

Congress will also focus on the key challenge of putting health at the heart of health and safety management, reviewing ‘what works’; whether it is a question of managing stress and staff ill-health absence, or the challenge of reducing manual handling injuries, tackling occupational asthma or dermatitis or developing approaches to workplace health promotion that actually help to deliver healthier working lives.

It runs alongside Safety and Health Expo 2005 at the NEC and RoSPA’s Occupational Health and Safety Awards ceremonies. For more information, see http://www.rospa.com/shwcongress/ , e-mail events@rospa.com or ring 0121 248 2120.