IOSH’s Get the Best campaign was given its formal lift-off at the Honorary Vice-Presidents’ Luncheon at the House of Lords in May.
The event saw 77 senior figures from the health and safety world, as well as politicians from both the Commons and the Lords with an interest in health and safety issues, get together. They discussed some of IOSH’s key activities, including the Get the Best campaign and our young people campaign.
Lord McKenzie of Luton, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the DWP, addressed the audience, which included some of IOSH’s 18 honorary vice-presidents, and representatives from such organisations as RoSPA, British Safety Council, CBI, IoD and the TUC.
Lord McKenzie told delegates: “Health and safety is a crucial part of any successful business, and that’s a message the Government is happy to reiterate over and over again. The ‘Get the Best’ campaign will raise awareness among employers of the need to get the best advice on health and safety, and so help them prevent and manage occupational health and safety issues.
“IOSH is a key partner for the DWP and HSE. My colleague John Hutton, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, emphasised this at IOSH’s annual conference earlier this year, when he announced the Government’s intention to work even closer with IOSH to prevent people from becoming ill at work, and support and rehabilitate those who do become ill.”
IOSH president, Lisa Fowlie, said: “We recognise that IOSH has an important role to play. As a chartered body, we assess all our members’ skills, qualifications and experience when we award the appropriate grade of membership. And we require our members to maintain their skills through CPD.
“The challenge is to raise awareness to our own membership so they get the best from the professional body, to target the employers and provide them with information so they get the best health and safety advice for their organisation, and to engage with the media so they get the best comment for health and safety matters.”
IOSH’s Get the Best campaign document calls on the government and others to:
– Be clear about what’s best — define competence;
– Make the UK the best — adopt national standards for health and safety competence;
– Make the profession the best — provide regulation;
– Make directors the best — create specific duties on health and safety;
– Show that UK business is the best — make it mandatory for all medium and large businesses to report on health and safety performance;
– Make business education the best — add health and safety to the core curricula.
– You can find out more about Get the Best by going to www.iosh.co.uk/getthebest
