Clyde & Co Health & Safety Forum 2019

The HSE, while wishing to maintain this country's safety record, is very much prioritising a concerted focus on health in the workplace. And you may well ask: why? What I'd like to do is, as Rod says, address some basic principles of MSDs, manual handling musculo-skeletal disorders, and look at the commonalities in what I consider to be the weaknesses in the way in which the issues are addressed. I'm going to talk about what HSE wants to see, and I'm going to share examples of what I've seen over 30 years as an occupational hygienist, and the problems that I've seen that I first saw as a hygienist 30 years ago, that I still see now. The process of enforcement is a painful one and it's something that all of you sitting there want to avoid. So what did I want to come and talk to you about? Well, there are four things really. I want to talk a little bit about safety performance. I imagine that's really why you're here. You're not here to tick a checklist box and say you turned up at a conference. You want something tangible that will make a difference to your business, I suspect. I want to talk a little bit about safety culture because I believe that's the thing that drives performance in safety. I also want to discuss leadership involvement because I think that's the thing that drives cultural maturity. And then I want to wrap that all up in a mesh that's practical, so you can take things back and really start to do differently. MSDs are probably more a current and relevant concern and issue in terms of health and safety on the basis that what happens in the workplace today can well result in claims almost immediately or in a few years' time. The asbestos that we'll touch upon is much more of a latent disease.