What about Safety & Health instead of Health & Safety? That's bound to confuse most readers.

Let's also not overlook that it is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, the etc. including welfare.

My personal feeling is that it is up to us to ensure that our 'brand' is fully understood by those both in the media and recipients of the media message. I think it is a pity that the professional organisations have put so much effort into the OSHCR, which will, in my opinion, do little to divert the media from their favourite game of misrepesenting health and safety, rather than put that effort into getting the real truth across to the general public.

After all, the Act does concern the general public. Many of them are 'workers', but also the Act includes "...for protecting others against risks to health or safety in connection with the activities of persons at work..."

IOSH keeps telling us how many members they have. Why cannot they mobilise this large number to get the message across? (Thinks - people power in Tunisia, Libya can produce results, why not IOSH members?)

Chris

The replies so far seem to resist change, however H&S used to be the Factories act and has changed with the times.
Here's a few suggestions:-

The workplace Safety Act
The Well being of Employees act

The Red Tops are the tabloid newspapers, Sun, Mirror, etc so named because of their red logo.

As for rebranding, I don't think so. Can you remember back to Consignia which the Post Office used for about a year. That was an expensive flop.

Turning 50, mmm, I did that last week. So far so good.....

Changing what we call it won't make any difference to the wrongful view put forward by the press and now enacted by the Government simply because it fits with the majority of the population simply because they don't understand what it is really about. I have stopped defending H&S when out with friends because they don't understand what it is about. One thing I have noticed though is most of the ridicul seems to come from the public sector behaviour in managing H&S, about 90% of such silly reports involve those who work in the public sector such as council officials. When was the last silly report made about someone doing something in a factory situation where the risk was not controlled effectively. Just look at the procecutions and thier concequences and what sector they are mainly under. Change the name NO that would look as if the sector is running scared and give even more relevance to the claims being made. We need IOSH to stand up and become a very vocal organisation to press home the point of what H&S is really about.

Re. "How about improving the image by accepting that H&S has to moderate itself a bit more?"

I think it is necessary to define the difference between H&S as a prescribed set of laws and what Chairel is describing as individuals.

We should have no criticism regarding the fact that individuals do need to moderate their behavior and sense of rationale when interpreting the law - which extends also to policies which are not set-down by the law but adopted and adapted by organizations for their needs.

As such, the argument is not about H&S (the law) being at fault but individuals. So it is H&S, as virtue, which does not need moderating but the variation of behavior of those people who work within it's trades.

It is also important that we quantify the number of apparently zealous practitioners. As there is no data accompanying then it must all be regarded as assumptions and speculations.

This is not meant to sound dismissive - in fact, I have come across several myself. A set of questions arises from this:

(i) are these instances recorded? Or how would these instances be recorded to provide fair and credible argument?

(ii) are these individuals held to account?

(iii) If, hypothetically, 1 in every 1000 practitioners makes a zealous decision does this by merit condemn the 999 other practitioners, or indeed that individual 1 practitioner whole opus of work prior to the their decision or decisions they made after?

(iv) are we culpable, as representatives of a higher profession, for not addressing this behavior in others at the time of its occurrence?

Andrew Böber CMIOSH FRSPH FRGS

I thoroughly agree, it generally is local authorities being over zealous and the example I would use is the knocking over of the gravestones, minor accidents in an 8 year period more workers hurt tipping the stones over and money wasted inventing a device to test whether they will topple.
Ludicrous!!

Most of the construction industry used to have apprentices, then came MHSWR 19, which effectively killed of the employment of any young person.
How? The MCG and the insurance company's cherry picked what they wanted out off it, they totally ignored 19 (3) and took the rest, can not employee them as may get hurt.
Is this recorded, yes, it is recorded at every level including government meetings, and it is up held.
The MCG now run the construction industry, over Zulus yes.
You now have to wear light eye protection, to protect from what? What happened to the PPE regs. Is it recorded yes, can you fight it? No. You want to work you will comply, under CDM, any rules as long as they are written.
So it is not just individuals it is whole chunks of industry's. Manufacturing of circuit boards, placing little pieces and soldering, wear your glasses or do not work, what is it protecting you from.
Who makes the rules, the client, who suffers H & S.
So yes we do need the regs overhauled. Not just the over Zulus

Rebranding just makes you look shifty and untrustworthy- we used to have a Personnel Department, who then became the Human Resources team (but they don’t play football) and now they are The Organisational Design Function!

Ray, that thought ocurred to me too but I also saw an article which stated that the need for vast qualtities of water was more important than the assessed risk of tsunami on that vast and unprecedented scale. I would hope that teams of highly competent engineers are re-looking at that risk calculation right now before we build any of our next generation reactors.

In my opinion, we clean up the image by getting out of the non-occupational safety side.

- Whenever there's a 'No-Win/No-Fee' claim for someone tripping over their own feet...it's labelled as a H&S Issue
- Whenever a community event is stopped....it's for H&S reasons
- Whenever someone goes off on their own risk-taking jaunt e.g. climbing a tree for the fun of it and they come a cropper....H&S is brought up.

My suggestion to IOSH would be to slap an alternative label on these kind of issues...hand it to the 'tabloids' and get back to trying to prevent injury and ill-health at what most people would understand to be 'at work'.

In relation to the 'rogues', it's up to IOSH to continue the work to define how H&S can help businesses: many are led to the conclusion that they can pay £3K to a consultant and not lift a finger for a year.

Ray
Your company is organising an fun day or something similar. This is part of ‘your undertaking’ as it is something that the company must benefit from, as nobody does anything just for a laugh, even if the benefits are intangibles like better company morale. Just because it does not involve machines and plant does not mean that it is not real Health and Safety.

Ron

Looks that way, must stop being Overzealous with the one finger Helicopter typing, and try to engage brain, eyes and finger at the same time, Multi tasking for a male?

Sean, I would like to return to part of your original thread and consider a renaming of our profession. Can I add to yours with


" WOE" -Welfare Of Employees;

"WCS" - Workers Care Society"


Hopefully start the ball rolling for some classical but light remarks .............nearly friday


Wizard

Unless we - the professionn deal with the stupid highly risk averse then it will not change - we should not be too slow in providing reasonable and realistic advice against the highly risk averse advice - what we should be doing is holding to account and getting the names of persons who give over the top typically stupid advice - I had one the other week where a so called H&S person - no qualifications as we found later that day - has required a local authority to put up notices cautioning everyone and his dog, this is A4 size notices, about very hot water coming out of a hot taps, in all washrroms - this is about as stupid as cautioning persons to mind the steps at the top & bottom of a stairwell - IMO.

I am not sure we can win at this while we have such a dispicable negative sensationalist media - in this country. It's not just H&S that suffers. What about back-room public servants - vilified just because they are invisable to the public and don't wear a uniform. What about science - they nearly always get that wrong - scare stories, overstated cures and silly stories. What about political bias - best not even go there!

Sorry, not in a very optimistic mood about this one. May be we should apply the black and proud approach. We just need a James Brown style song, "I'm a Health and Safety Advisor, you need me to risk advise'ya".

Well said Clairl

BuzzLightyear

I was not attacking you for your opinion,
What clairl said about H&S cleaning its act up, and getting rid of "elf n safety", is IMO correct. H&S I was taught was about risk reduction, not aversion. If aversion is paramount then stop all cars using the road as they might have an accident, bring down the space station as it might fall out of the sky.
I am of an age when I can remember Chicken Liken the sky's falling in.
As for respect the media, it is not only the media who vilify H&S it is Joe public, and most of the time with just cause.
So if you would like some light reading try chicken liken, then look at today's H&S

You 'attacked' the press and so I responded on their behalf. I didn't 'attack' you.

The majority of the 'media' (do you mean media or do you mean press? - two different things entirely) is fine - biased - but fine. The minority of poor media in the country shouldn't tarnish the rest - just as the minority of poor H&S shouldn't tarnish the rest. Are you starting to see where I'm coming from yet??

You like Radio 4 and the Guardian but they are no less biased and no better at reporting than other forms of media and press. They just happen to suit your personal ideals.

Equally you ask me to read one publication to prove to me that the majority of the media get science 'wrong'. Well that book is media too is it not? Yes some science is mis-interpreted in the media - but then how many scientists have also misinterpreted their own findings for some other interest (the case of the MMR vaccine being a prime example - that wasn't the fault of the press more a scientist being paid to find a particular finding).

I don't think the media is perfect. I haven't said that at all. But you are wrong to blame H&S's bad image on the media - to do so is to bury your head in the sand and amounts to the same prejudice against the media as they sometimes show against H&S.

bob

It is not just the public sector, it appears to me to be in most areas that safety has gone of the rails. Maybe we all make a wrong call at times, but having the Bo***** to say I was wrong is one way to make improvements. We all make mistakes but we all need to learn from them. But stupid is as stupid does.
I know of a lot of safety people who have not one qualification, but I still go to them for advice as they know a lot more than me in their field. I also know of people who have more qualifications than me but I would not trust to see me across the road.