CASE STUDY 5

PLAN DO CHECK ACT.

Safety Management

- Organisations have a legal duty to put place suitable arrangements to manage health and
safety
- It is for each organisation to develop arrangements that are proportionate to their own risks,
and takes into account the existing management system of their business
- HSE has published guidance on safety management systems. This is in a free publication
called Managing for Health and Safety referred to as HSG65

PDCA

- One model is used for a variety of business and learning process, and is also adopted by a
number of international management standards
- The PDCA Model looks at management from a systemic and behavioural perspective, and can
be applied to the self-employed individual through to a global corporation
- This e-learning module is only an overview each element will be discussed in depth during
the course. Do not try and remember the detail now
- A CYCLE for the CONTROL and CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT of safety management

PLAN
- Planning a safety management system consists of two elements:
Determining your safety POLICY
PLANNING for implementation

PLAN SAFETY POLICY

- A safety POLICY sets a clear DIRECTION for the organisation

- It reflects the values and beliefs of the organisation
- And a commitment to provide a health and safety environment

PLAN PLANNING FOR IMPLEMENTATION

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 - An organisation must plan to control risks, react to changing demands, and sustain positive
health and safety attitudes and behaviours
- This involves designing and implementing suitable and proportionate management
arrangements, risk control systems and workplace precautions that link to how you manage
other aspects of the organisation

In order to plan successfully, you need to establish:

- Where the organisation is now

- Where you need to be, using legal requirements and benchmarking to make comparisons
- What action is necessary to reach that point

DO
- Delivery of a safety management system ensures that employees and others are protected.
This will involve
PROFILING your organisations health and safety risks
ORGANISING for health and safety
IMPLEMENTING the plan

DO PROFILING RISKS

- Risks profiling involves:

Assessing the risk, and identifying what could cause harm in the workplace,
who it could harm, and what you will do to manage the risks
Deciding what the priorities are and identifying the biggest risks

DO ORGANISING FOR HEALTH AND SAFETY

- Organising involves:
Involvement and communication so that everyone is clear on what is needed
and can discuss issues developing positive attitudes and behaviours
Proving adequate resources, including component advice where needed

DO IMPLEMENT YOUR PLAN

- Implementation involves:
Decide on the preventative and protective measures needed and put them
in place
Provide the right tools and equipment to do the job and keep them
maintained
Train and instruct, to ensure that everyone is competent to carry out their
work
Supervise to make sure that arrangements are followed

CHECK

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 - Monitoring and reporting are important parts of health and safety arrangements.
Management systems allow organisations to receive both specific (incident led) and
routine reports on the performance of health and safety policy
- This will involve
MEASURING performance
INVESTIGATING accidents and incidents

CHECK MEASURING PERFORMANCE AND INVESTIGATION

- You must make sure that plans have been implemented not rely on paperwork alone
- You should assess how well the risks are being controlled, and if you are achieving your aims
- Active methods tend to be preventative in nature, for example:
Routine inspections of premises, plant and equipment
Health surveillance to prevent harm to heath
- Reactive methods monitor evidence of poor practice:
Investigating accidents and incidents
Monitoring cases of ill health and sickness absence records

ACT
- The final element is to review performance and take action on lessons learned. A more
suitable word may be Adjust rather than Act.
- REVIEWING performance involves learning from accidents and incidents, ill health data
errors and experience, including from other organisations
- REVISIT plans, policy documents and risk assessments to see if they need updating
- TAKE ACTION from investigation reports and organisation vulnerabilities identified during
monitoring, audit and review processes

CHECK YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1. PLAN Determine your safety policy
2. DO Profile safety risks
3. CHECK Investigate accidents
4. ACT Revisit and revise plans

IMPORTANT POINT TO REMEMBER is that

the PDCA model relates to safety MANAGEMENT, and not to work in general.

This is a common mistake with students who are new to management systems.

So, PLAN relates to planning the safety management, not planning a task. And DO relates to
doing safety management, and will include things such as undertaking risk assessments, planning an
actual task, and delivering training.