Career Technical

Module 5 Education at Abu Dhabi

Polytechnic

*ADPoly is a post-secondary unit of the Institute of Applied Technology

EMET-2001  Health Safety & Environment

Section 1
Management of international health and safety
2 Module 5

Monitoring Performance, Inspection, Audit and

investigation of incidents
 Module 5 : Inspection, Audit and
investigation of incidents
3

Learning Outcomes
On completion of this module, student should be able to:
1. Understand PDCA cycle (model) for OH&S continuous
improvement

2. Outline the key features of a system to effectively manage

health and safety through monitoring performance,

2. Outline how accidents are caused and the role and function
of accident recording, reporting and investigation
How do we use PDCA to Manage Safety Well?
4
ISO 45001:2018 has adopted the four stage Plan-Do-Check-
Act (PDCA) cycle (model) for achieving H&S continual
improvement.

 Planning
 Policy  Profiling the health and
safety risks
 Organizing
 Implementing your plans
How do we use PDCA to Manage Safety Well?
5
What is required at each stage of Plan-Do-Check-Act?
Plan:
This stage covers two key issues: planning for implementation and
policy:
Planning for implementation means identifying where we are now and then
identifying where we want to be.

For example, we could be looking at introducing a new piece of equipment into

our workplace. So what should we be considering at this stage?
How are we going to control the risks associated with this equipment?
What is the most suitable equipment from a safety perspective?
What emergency procedures need to be put in place?
What are the training requirements?
Is any personal protective equipment required?
During this stage we should also make sure that we are meeting the
requirements of our organization's Health and Safety Policy.
How do we use PDCA to Manage Safety Well?
6
Do:

The Do stage looks at three key areas:

 Profiling the health and safety risks and specific risk

 Organizing
 Implementing your plans

So in reality what does this mean? 

 Identifying the risks through suitable and sufficient risk assessment.

 Organizing by identifying roles and responsibilities, communication
procedures and ensuring competent personnel are in place.
 Implementation of the plan – ensuring risks are adequately controlled;
correct maintenance procedures are in place and providing information,
instruction, training and supervision to ensure people are competent and
that procedures are followed.
How do we use PDCA to Manage Safety Well?
7
Check:

This is an important stage. Once we have implemented our plan we need to

ensure that it is working effectively. To achieve this we need to MEASURE
PERFORMANCE.

Good quality performance monitoring will help us to identify problems,

understand why the problems arose, and understand what changes are
necessary to resolve the issues.

How do we do this?

 Inspection of the plant and equipment (for example: monthly inspection)

 Job observations
 Health surveillance
 Environmental monitoring
 Reporting of accidents and near miss
How do we use PDCA to Manage Safety Well?
8

Act:

This is where we evaluate our health and safety performance to determine

whether or not the essential principles of our plan and policy are being
implemented correctly or whether there are improvements that can be made.

With our new piece of equipment, if we identify issues from our performance
measurements in the check stage we will act upon them and remedy them.
For example, after noise monitoring, should the machinery have noise levels
above the legal requirements we would look at ways of addressing this. We
then look at how we go about doing this; going through the Plan-Do-Check-
Act cycle (model) again.

The PDCA cycle (model) is the basis of how we go about managing Health
and Safety on not only a large scale but also it can be incorporated in to our
day-to-day management of it
How do we use PDCA to Manage Safety Well?
9

When to use Plan-Do-Check-Act?

 As a model for continuous improvement.
 When starting a new improvement project.
 When developing a new or improved design of a process, product or
service.
 When defining a repetitive work process.
 When planning data collection and analysis in order to verify and prioritize
problems or root causes.
 When implementing any change.
 Why Monitor performance?
10

 Aim to provide a complete picture of an organisations health

and safety performance
 Two types of monitoring health and safety performance:
– Pro-active or active monitoring
– Reactive monitoring
 Aim to achieve set targets
 Continuous improvement of H&S at workplace
 What is Pro-active or active monitoring?
11
Is to ensure that health and safety standards are met in the
workplace before accidents, incidents or ill-health occur.

There are four active monitoring methods that can be used to

check conformance to standards:

 Safety inspection: regular, scheduled activity with comparison to

accepted performance standards
 Safety sampling: checking a sample of 50 fire extinguishers out of
1200 in large office complex
 Safety tours: is a high profile inspection of a workplace carried out by a
group or team including managers
 Safety survey: is a detailed examination of one particular issue or topic,
e.g. a detailed examination of the provision of emergency lighting within a
building,
 Safety Inspection
12
Inspection Check-List includes:
 Electrical safety
 Provision & use of PPE
 Storage & use of hazardous
substances
 Manual handling
 Environmental conditions
 Housekeeping
 Condition of traffic routes
 Machinery
 Internal transport
 Safety signs
 Emergency facilities
 Welfare facilities
 ISO 45001 & internal audit
13
One of the fundamental components of any ISO 45001-certified
OH&SMS is the function of the internal audit.

As a mandatory part of the ISO 45001 standard itself, the

internal audit is essential for checking your system’s
performance and compliance.

It is also an excellent tool to ensure continual improvement

through identification of gaps and areas where performance
could be adjusted for the better
 ISO 45001 & internal audit
14
The organisation must plan, establish, implement and
maintain an audit program, which contains information
on:
 The frequency that audits are conducted;
 The methodology / protocol used (should be in general
conformance with the requirements of ISO
 Guidelines for auditing management systems
 Who is responsible for managing and conducting audits;
 What consultation takes place with auditees and the general
workforce
 How the audits are planned and implemented
 The format for reporting audit
 ISO 45001 & internal audit
15
What competences should an ISO 45001 internal auditor
have?
 Definition of an Audit
16
Audit can be defined as:

A systematic, objective, critical evaluation of an organisation’s

health and safety management system
During the Audit:
There are 3 methods of gathering information

• Documents and records

• Interviews – word-of-mouth evidence given managers and workers
• Direct Observation of the workplace, equipment, activities and behaviour.

Photographs, copying paperwork are used to back up interview

evidence.
An auditors favourite words are ‘show me’ and ‘prove it’.
 Audits vs. Inspections
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Audit focuses on Health and safety management systems:

-It examines documentation, safety policy, risk assessments,

method statements
- Looks at training records, maintenance records, inspections
- Verifies standards from interviews and direct observation.

An inspection is a simpler process of checking the workplace for

uncontrolled hazards and addressing at the same time.
 What is Reactive monitoring?
18
Using accident, incidents and ill health as indicators of
performance to highlight areas of concern.
• Things have already gone wrong and things are being put right after the
event.
• It measures failure, and therefore is a negative aspect to focus on.

Reactive monitoring methods:

 Accident investigation
 Near miss reporting
 Complaints from the workers
 Demanded by the enforcement action
 Demanded by insurance company
 Findings from an auditing report
 Findings from inspection report
Source of information for reactive
monitoring comes from :
• Accident and incident reports
• Accident and incident
investigation
• Insurance companies
• Enforcement authorities
 What is an Accident?
19

Definition of an accident:

An unplanned, unwanted event which leads to injury, damage or

loss of property, plant, materials or the environment.
 Accident Causation
20

Indirect
Cause
Direct Cause/
immediate causes
A
Underlying
Factors B

Root Cause
 Accident Causation
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Accident Causation

1. Immediate causes of an accident usually a combination of:-

• Unsafe Acts (Behaviour) (fault of person)

• Unsafe Conditions (poor working environment)
 Accident Causation
22
Examples of unsafe conditions:
 Inadequate or missing guards
e.g. using a bench grinder with the guard raised
 Inadequate fire warning systems
 Poor housekeeping
 Excessive noise
 Inadequate supervision
Examples of unsafe acts (Behaviour) :
 Working without authority
 Failure to warn others of danger
 Disconnecting safety devices
 Failure to use or wear PPE
(not wearing goggles to Prevent Eye injury)
 Horseplay
 Accident Causation
23
2. Root causes or underlying causes of an accident :-

Are the things that lie behind the immediate causes, often root
causes will be failures in the management system

Root cause – Lack of management control or failures in the

management system

– If management get things right in the beginning, you can

eliminate or reduce the Root causes that lead to the immediate
causes
 Accident Investigation Purpose
24
 To establish true causes (immediate & root) of an accident in
order to prevent a re-occurrence.
 To establish economic losses & extent of legal compliance.
 To obtain sufficient information in order to defend a legal claim

Who Might Want to Investigate?

 Employer
 Trade Union Safety Representative
 Enforcing authority HSE
 Insurance company
 Police
 Reasons for Incident Investigating
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 Identify immediate and root causes

 Identify corrective action to prevent reoccurrence

 To record the facts of the incident

 Legal requirements

 For staff morale

 Disciplinary procedures

 Data gathering purposes

 Why accidents may not be reported
26
Reasons why workers might not report accidents:

 Unclear organisational policy

 Lack of training on policy and procedure
 No reporting system in place
 Overly complicated reporting procedure
 Excessive paperwork
 Takes too much time
 Blame culture
 Apathy due to management’s perceived response in the past
 Reluctance to receive first aid treatment
Certain types of incident have to be reported to external agencies such as:
Fatalities, major injuries, occupational diseases and some dangerous
occurrence
 Accident Investigation Report
27

The content of a typical accident investigation report

– Date & time of accident

– Location of the accident
– Details of injured person(s)
– Type of accident & injury
– Circumstance surrounding the accident
– Immediate and root causes of the accident
– Witness details
– Recommended corrective action with responsibilities
– Estimation of the costs

Certain types of incident have to be reported to external agencies such as:

Fatalities, major injuries, occupational diseases and some dangerous
occurrence