UK: Businesses ‘must do more in new year for safety’

from Safety Media

Firms should make a new year’s resolution to boost health and safety in their workplaces, a leading professional asserts.

Nattasha Freeman, the president of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), has called on businesses to ensure all elements of their company’s culture improve the wellbeing of its members.

Whether through higher standards of safety or promoting healthy lifestyles, she says organisations have a key role in keeping their workers protected.

Among the guidance IOSH advises is promoting a better work life balance, so as to prevent stress-related illness and a clampdown on workplace bullying.

Ms Freeman states: “By doing this, not only will we cut the 229 deaths in British workplaces last year, we’ll also have a significant impact on the 299,000 serious injuries … caused or made worse by work.”

Figures recently released by the Health and Safety Executive show there have been 19,000 accidents in the north-west during 2008.