Focus on safety and health, professionals tell Purnell
January 28th 2008 Health and safety must figure prominently on the agenda of the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, James Purnell MP, if the UK is to improve its worrying increase in workplace deaths and still overly-high rate of occupational ill-health.
That’s the message from the president of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), Ray Hurst, as Mr Purnell settles down to his first day at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
“We hope that with Mr Purnell coming in there will be renewed focus, vigour and support at the DWP, for tackling health and safety issues in the UK. One of the first challenges he needs to get his teeth into is to ensure that there is adequate funding provided to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) so that they are able to fulfil their statutory duties to provide appropriate enforcement and advice on health and safety.
“In our evidence to Dame Carol Black on the health of the working-age population, we’ve backed an evidence-based approach to tackling occupational health problems. We’ve also called for renewed government funding for occupational health provision and a greater emphasis on multidisciplinary working.”
Ray said that he also hoped the government would produce a clearly defined statement on competence and introduce enforceable directors’ duties for health and safety: “Employers need access to competent advice on health and safety issues, and a competence statement will help them realise what competent advice ‘looks like’. Directors should adopt the new guidance ‘Leading on health and safety at work’ * and by making their duties enforceable, the government would be signalling its intent to improve health and safety from the top.”
Ray added that IOSH also urged the government to support IOSH campaigns to protect young workers and improve training and supervision, consult on legally regulating the profession, help get health and safety into vocational, professional and business curricula and to make public reporting on health and safety performance compulsory. More articles from IOSH: | 
