Health and Safety Event 10

BSC WARNS AGAINST MAKING CUTBACKS IN HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT
January 12th 2009

As the recession tightens and businesses across the UK look at ways of reducing costs in order to stay afloat, the British Safety Council (BSC) and a leading lawyer in the field of personal injury have issued a stark warning to business leaders: reducing spend on controlling risks to workplace health and safety could endanger lives and cost companies an average of Ł30,000 per claim along with significant damage to their reputation.

“There is a danger with the credit crunch that firms will cut back on health and safety planning and implementation, leading to an increase in personal injuries at work,” says Grahame Aldous QC of 9 Gough Square Chambers. “This may provide more work for lawyers, but the reputational and internal ethos damage to firms may be considerable if they let this area of their operations go. Despite the myth of a compensation culture, personal injury claims have been reducing, but firms should not be surprised if that reverses if they let health and safety go to cut costs.”

Research conducted last year by the BSC, a leading authority on work-related health and safety, revealed that despite long established laws on health and safety, two out of three UK employees have had little or no safety training, while barely half of their bosses had arranged a safety audit or had a health and safety management system in place. The annual bill for employers in payouts and costs for accidents and injuries at work is Ł7.8 billion1 which is the equivalent of Ł250 a second.

Brian Nimick, BSC Chief Executive, said: “Last year 229 people were killed at work. If businesses now choose to reduce their spending on health and safety training and management, there is a very real danger that employees are going to be at far greater risk of injury or ill health.

“Health and safety at work is about protecting people’s lives and well-being and helping to make sure that they go home to their loved ones and families at the end of the working day as fit and well as they were when they went to work that morning. Businesses need to recognise the consequences of not investing the resources necessary to prevent needless deaths and harm.”

The BSC is the Official Educational Partner of the Health and Safety 09 events, with an exciting programme of speakers and topics for the Sandown event 24-25 February 2009, reviewing current issues as well as taking a fresh look at established areas of interest. For more details about the seminar programme click here.

More articles from British Safety Council:

BSC ANNOUNCES SPEAKERS AT H&S ‘10 - SOUTH (11th January 2010)

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Officially opened last week by Lord McKenzie, Department of Work and Pensions’ Health and Safety Minister, the £1m new Learning Zone facility at the British Safety Council’s (BSC) headquarters in Hammersmith will offer students an exciting learning experience and provide high quality facilities that will benefit the business community. The BSC’s aim is to make health and safety education accessible in order to save lives and reduce work-related sickness and injury.