Introduction to Occupational Health & Safety Engineering

➢ Occupational health and safety (OHS) is relevant to all branches of industry and business including
traditional industries, information technology companies, the National Health Service, care homes, schools,
universities, leisure facilities and offices.

➢ The purpose of this course is to get you introduced with the foundations on which appropriate health and
safety management systems may be built. Occupational health and safety affects all aspects of work. In a low
hazard organization, health and safety may be supervised by a single competent manager. In a high hazard
manufacturing plant, many different specialists, such as engineers (electrical, mechanical and civil), lawyers,
medical doctors and nurses, trainers, work planners and supervisors, may be required to assist the
professional health and safety practitioner in ensuring that there are satisfactory health and safety standards
within the organization.

➢ There are many obstacles to the achievement of good standards. The pressure of production or performance
targets, financial constraints and the complexity of the organization are typical examples of such obstacles.
However, there are some powerful incentives for organizations to strive for high health and safety standards.
These incentives include moral and economic.
➢ Health and safety in the workplace is an important corporate responsibility issue.

❑ The UK Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) mission is to ensure that the risks to health and
safety of workers are properly controlled. In terms of corporate responsibility, it is working to
encourage organizations to:

➢ improve health and safety management systems to reduce injuries and ill health;
➢ demonstrate the importance of health and safety issues at board level;
➢ report publicly on health and safety issues within their organization, including their performance
against targets.

❑ The HSE believes that effective management of health and safety:

➢ is vital to employee well-being;

❑ Health – The protection of the bodies and minds of people from illness resulting from the materials,
processes or procedures used in the workplace.

❑ Safety – The protection of people from physical injury. The borderline between health and safety is ill
defined and the two words are normally used together to indicate concern for the physical and mental
well-being of the individual at the place of work.

❑ Welfare – The provision of facilities to maintain the health and well-being of individuals at the
workplace. Welfare facilities include washing and sanitation arrangements, the provision of drinking
water, heating, lighting, accommodation for clothing, seating (when required by the work activity or
for rest), eating and rest rooms. First-aid arrangements are also considered as welfare facilities.

❑ Occupational or work-related ill health – This is concerned with those illnesses or physical and
mental disorders that are either caused or triggered by workplace activities. Such conditions may be
induced by the particular work activity of the individual or by activities of others in the workplace.
The time interval between exposure and the onset of the illness may be short (e.g. asthma attacks) or
long (e.g. deafness or cancer).
❑ Accident – This is defined by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as ‘ any unplanned event that results in
injury or ill health of people, or damage or loss to property, plant, materials or the environment or a loss of a
business opportunity.’

❑ Near miss – This is any incident that could have resulted in an accident. Knowledge of near misses is very
important as research has shown that, approximately, for every 10 ‘ near miss ’ events at a particular location in
the workplace, a minor accident will occur.

❑ Dangerous occurrence – This is a ‘ near miss ’ which could have led to serious injury or loss of life.
Dangerous occurrences are defined in the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences
Regulations 1995 (often known as RIDDOR) and are always reportable to the enforcement authorities.
Examples include the collapse of a scaffold or a crane or the failure of any passenger carrying equipment.

❑ Hazard and risk – A hazard is the potential of a substance, person, activity or process to cause harm. Hazards
take many forms including, for example, chemicals, electricity and working from a ladder. A hazard can be
ranked relative to other hazards or to a possible level of danger.
❑ A risk is the likelihood of a substance, activity or process to cause harm. A risk can be reduced and the
hazard controlled by good management.

❖ Note:- It is very important to distinguish between a hazard and a risk – the two terms are often confused
and activities such as construction work are frequently called high risk when they are high hazard .
Although the hazard will continue to be high, the risks will be reduced as controls are implemented. The
level of risk remaining when controls have been adopted is known as the residual risk . There should
only be high residual risk where there is poor health and safety management and inadequate control
measures