IOSH launches chartered health & safety practitioner scheme
December 12th 2005 The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has launched an accreditation scheme for health and safety professionals.
Billed as the health and safety equivalent of CORGI accreditation for plumbers, under the programme H&S practitioners must undertake initial professional development (IPD), enrol on mandatory continuous professional development – and are tested and interviewed on current knowledge and practises.
IOSH says with almost half of health and safety professionals now reporting at board or governing-body level – and increasingly having to make the business case for their recommendations – improved training and skills will benefit both businesses and practitioners.
“We’re raising our game so that business and industry can reap the benefits,” says IOSH President, Lawrence Waterman. “The days when a health and safety practitioner could just go around the workplace with a checklist and pen are long gone.”
Waterman believes chartered health and safety professionals will be a “different breed: providing practical solutions to everyday problems in the workplace; communicating in the language of business.”
Visit the IOSH website www.iosh.co.uk/corecompetent to find out more. More articles from IOSH: | 
