The Importance Of Planning

Question 1

•The principle outcome of risk assessments and risk control systems.
•Provided at the point of risk to protect people from harm arising from work activity.
For Example:
•A guard provided to protect against the moving parts of a machine.
What is being described here?

Answer 1

•Workplace precautions

Question 2

• What is being described
• The basis for ensuring that adequate workplace precautions are provided and maintained.
• Rather than just providing a machine guard and assuming it will work (_ _ _)s are designed to ensure the success of the machine guard.
• This may involve systems for the design,fabrication and fitting of the guard, operator training in the safe use of the guard, and maintenance arrangements to ensure its ongoing effectiveness.

Answer 2

•Risk control systems (RCS)s

Question 3

•What is being described
•The key elements of the health and safety management system, the arrangements necessary to 
•Plan
•Organise
•Control
•Monitor 
and
Review the design and implementation of RCSs

Answer 3

•Management Controls

Question 4

The Plan element of the HSG65 model has two sub-elements. Give a brief explanation of each.

Answer 4

• Planning involves the following key actions: Determining policy by devising a strategy, setting targets and deciding how health and safety is to be managed and who is to be responsible for what. In general, this applies to the overall health and safety policy, as required by the HSW Act s.2(3), but it might equally involve drawing up a policy on a particular health and safety issue, such as alcohol at work, use of vehicles or lone working.
• Planning for implementation by adopting a coordinated approach involving all members of the organisation in order to devise a plan for controlling risk, reacting to changing demands and sustaining a positive health and safety culture. For this, it is necessary to establish the current status of the organisation, where it needs to be and what is needed to get there.

Question 5

The ‘doing’ stage has three sub-elements give a brief explain of each:

Answer 5

• Profiling the organisation’s health and safety risks. ‘Risk profiling’ according to HSG 65, involves assessing the risks - by identifying what could cause harm in the workplace, who it could harm and how, the likelihood of such harm and how the risks should be managed - and deciding on priorities. Prioritisation will be determined by the level of the assessed risks.
• Organising for health and safety is now split between the ‘planning’ and the ‘doing’ stages. At the planning stage, the overall health and safety structure will be decided - i.e. the expertise that is required and who is responsible for what - whereas at this stage ‘organising’ means involving staff at all levels, communicating effectively, encouraging a positive health and safety culture and providing adequate resources, including specialist advice where needed.
• Implementing the plan by deciding on the preventive and protective measures needed, putting them in place and providing suitable equipment to maintain them as well as training, instruction and supervision. When deciding on the measures required, the ‘general principles of prevention’ must be applied.

Question 6

Check

HSE identifies two main actions that are involved at the ‘checking’ stage give a brief explanation of each:

Answer 6

• Measuring performance by using both active (or proactive) monitoring methods (eg inspections, health surveillance, document examination, behavioural sampling, auditing) and reactive methods (eg numbers of accidents and other incidents, levels of sickness absence). The aim is to ensure that the plan is being implemented effectively, to assess how well the risks are being controlled and to see whether aims are being achieved.
• Investigate the causes of accidents, incidents or near misses. While this is identified as a sub-element in its own right, there would seem to be much overlap with the previous one in that this is also a means of collecting reactive data.

Question 7

Act

HSE identifies the following two sub elements for this stage of the process, give a brief explanation of each:

Answer 7

‘Act’
•Reviewing performance, firstly by learning from incidents, experience and so forth, and secondly by revisiting plans, policy documents, risk assessments, etc and deciding whether they need updating.
•Taking action on the lessons learned. Acting on incident reports and organisational vulnerabilities, as well as encouraging a culture of organisational learning.

Question 8

PLAN

Answer 8

Plan
■ Think about where you are now and where you need to be.
■ Say what you want to achieve, who will be responsible for what, how you will achieve your aims, and how you will measure your success. You may need to write down this policy and your plan to deliver it.
■ Decide how you will measure performance. Think about ways to do this that go beyond looking at accident figures; look for leading indicators as well as lagging indicators. These are also called active and reactive indicators (see ‘Types of monitoring’)
■ Consider fire and other emergencies. Co-operate with anyone who shares your workplace and co-ordinate plans with them.
■ Remember to plan for changes and identify any specific legal requirements that apply to you.