Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Chair Martin Temple CBE will deliver the opening address at IOSH’s annual international conference.
At the ICC Birmingham this September, he will explore three key areas – leadership, the impact of ‘rules’ (blue tape) on the health and safety system, and the HSE’s long-term strategy – and what they mean for professionals in the field.
In the context of leadership, Temple will highlight the fact that embedding good health and safety in any organisation starts at the top.
He said: “This is even more important when looking at the new challenges that we face such as cyber security and paying more attention to health and wellbeing, while ensuring that ‘traditional’ safety concerns such as working at height, and slips trips and falls, do not become overlooked.”
When covering business-to-business ‘burdens’, Temple said he will comment on how important the health and safety profession will be in the future to help keep proportionality in the field. This comes as HSE is reporting that some professionals are perpetuating the idea that health and safety is ‘too difficult’ for some businesses – especially smaller, lower-risk ones – to tackle themselves.
He added: “The health and safety profession is in very good shape, but the impact of these ‘rules’ are harming our goal of keeping health and safety simple and embedded in the day-to-day ways of doing business. Our recently-published blue tape review explores the perceptions and effects on business, providing us with a greater understanding and opportunity to make improvements.
“Stakeholder engagement is so important,” said Martin, “particularly over the next decade when we will be faced with huge challenges which will require using modern work methods, modern technologies, and new materials in global markets.
“It is going to be very important for health and safety professionals to communicate and interact with businesses in a way they understand, in a way for them to recognise that we can help them achieve their goals in a safe and healthy way.”
