The Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work, Penny Mordaunt MP has pledged her support for a new strategy for health in Britain’s workplaces.
The Heath and Work strategy engagement is launched at a time when stress and musculoskeletal disorders account for around 80 percent of all working time lost due to illness.
Statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which is opening the conversation and publishing the strategy, show that around 12,000 deaths each year from occupational lung diseases, accounting for 90 percent of estimated deaths related to past exposures at work.
Last year, work related illness affected around 1.3 million workers and nearly 26 million working days were lost because of it. The economic costs are stark – totalling over £9 billion per year for new cases alone – not including ongoing costs from working conditions of the past.
With an increasing emphasis on health issues in recent years, it is estimated that a quarter of all HSE enforcement notices issued to dutyholders concern issues around health in the workplace.
At the event, held at Nova Victoria construction site near Victoria Station, stakeholders representing employers, employees, professional/expert bodies and colleagues in Government, were encouraged to engage on the strategy through digital webinars, email bulletins and social media.
An online page has been developed, allowing stakeholders and public to view and download the strategy, and to post views and comments as part of the engagement process to provide information about their own contributions to improving health at work.
The announcement illustrates HSE’s contribution to wider Government initiatives on work and health and the Minister will be supported by HSE Chair, Martin Temple and Clive Johnson, Chair of Health in Construction Leadership Group and the Safety, Health and Environment Director at Land Securities who operate the site.
To join the engagement on the Health and Work strategy please follow the link below: http://hse.gov.uk/aboutus/strategiesandplans/health-and-work-strategy/index.htm
A question I spotted in a fire safety article caught my attention so, I in turn, am asking:
“Where are the ‘responsible persons’ educated in life-safety maintenance obligations?”
It seams to me that directors are also responsible for their organic assets as they are for facilities management and whilst the basic day to day, intermediate and long term planning maybe delegated to their elf-an-safety professionals to monitor, develop and feedback specific policy or strategies on the wide ranging elements and actors on any organisations Health & Safety, the directors remain ultimately responsible for “all life-safety maintenance obligations” under the Corporate Manslaughter Legislation.
So, if Wellbeing and Human Rights are going to have an overarching or in effect underpinning or taking presidency over other legislation and/or regulation as WEL (Work Exposure Limits) start to be rolled out from 2017 will the “workplace-experience” necessarily need to be evaluated, measured and audited along with all other hazards and human psychological risk factors within the facilities environmental matrix ?
And does that not put extra pressure on ensuring employees are educated in their “life-safety maintenance” as, neither will be able to just leave it up to the other anymore ?