Health and Safety Management System (Plan - Do - Check - Act)

 

Plan

Planning section of the health safety management system consists of policy planning and its implementation. The section covers areas like health and safety issues, risk, hazards and its control measures, emergency procedures that are in place, response to everchanging demands of the workplace and environment, implementation of local rules and regulations and promotion of positive health and safety culture.

Do

This section of the policy consists of implementation of the health and safety management system and its policy. Do section consists of identifying the risks in the workplace and categorizing those risks according to the level of threat it poses. Risk assessment has to be carried out an experienced personnel with adequate knowledge about the activities that takes place in the site. 

Risk assessment also depends on the type of organization.  Low level organization needs only a minimum level of risk assessment, while a medium level organization requires medium level risk assessment while a high level organization requires high technical level of risk assessment including sophisticated devises and technical knowledge so as to meet international standards.

The control measures implemented is categorized into elimination, substitution, engineering controls, managemental controls and PPE. The control measures are also divided into preventive and protective. Safe tools, safe equipments, safe machineries are also a part of the control measures that are implemented. 

The organization section is basically divided into 4 C's.

Control - This basically indicates the roles and responsibilities of  managers, supervisors etc.

Corporation - Corporation is nothing but relationship between employers, managers, supervisors,  workers and worker representatives.

Communication - Communication is nothing but the transfer of information from one person to an another either through face to face communication, electronic communication, emails, mass communication via speakers, mega phone, notice board, pamphlets etc.

Competence - Competence is usually determined during the selection process. Here a persons knowledge, experience and certification is checked and determined whether the person is eligible to carry out the responsibilities regarding health and safety.

The employer also has to take outside assistance incase of an emergency regarding fire, medical case, emergency rescue etc.

Check

Check section basically consists of checking or monitoring of the systems / policy that are in place and which are implemented. Various performance measures are in place to check the effectiveness of the system/ procedures in place. There are two types of performance measures.

1. Active monitoring :- This type of monitoring as the name suggests is proactive in nature. Active monitoring monitors the design, development, installation and the management procedures that are in place. Some of the active monitoring methods are daily inspections of site, equipment, machineries. Safety and ill health monitoring, etc. These methods are preventive in nature aiming to reduce the number of accidents, incidents, ill health and injuries and also to identify the short comings of the procedures and methods that are currently in place.

2. Reactive monitoring:- As the name suggests these are reactive in nature. These are steps taken after an incident or an accident. For example incident/ accident investigation report. The information received from such mishaps is used to prevent similar incidents/accidents from occurring in the future. The lessons learned can also be applied in other parts of the organization so as to prevent similar mishaps from occurring in the future.

Act (action for improvement)

In this section data collected from the above mentioned monitoring methods are analysed to understand the effectiveness of the system/ procedures in place. The analysis/ review has to be conducted by an experienced person with adequate knowledge and expertise on the activities that is going on the workplace. After review short comings of the systems in place are identified and additional control measures are taken to remove these risks and hazards. The lessons learned are recorded and filed. Sometimes existing control measures are modified to reduce the existing short comings. 

According to the findings most of the incidents/accidents that occur is due to lack of leadership, lack of supervision, poor attitude and behaviour towards health and safety and oversight.