Health and Safety

Occupational safety and health is an area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goals of occupational safety and health programs include to foster a safe and healthy work environment. OSH may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, and many others who might be affected by the workplace environment.

Adhering to health and safety polices is vital for ensuring sustainability and it is essential to ensure that your business does not endanger the health or safety of workers or clients nor damage the environment. Complying to health and safety guidelines and standards that are relevant to your industry, is of paramount importance for you to be able to trade in the global marketplace.


Hazards at Work
Whatever sort of business you are, there is always the possibility of an accident or damage to someone’s health. All work exposes people to hazards, be they: loads which have to be manually handled; dangerous machinery; toxic substances; electricity; working with display screen equipment or even psychological hazards such as stress.

The Cost of Safety Failure
The reason there are not even more accidents and diseases caused by work is because systems of prevention are in place which have been built up over generations. Safety does not come about by accident: most accidents happen because they have not been prevented. Yet despite all the precautions that are taken in the UK, there are still over 600, 000 workplace injuries every year as well as 1.8 million cases of ill health caused or made more by work.
In 2010/11 26.4 million working days were lost due to work-related illness and workplace injury.
Even small businesses have accidents. Accident rates in small businesses can be higher than in large operations(for instance the fatality rate in SME manufacturers is twice that of large ones.