Hi I'd like your opinions and experiences on the benefits (or not) of using prescriptive H&S Procedures to support H&S Policy statements. As a bit of background to my question... In my organisation (social care sector) we have an ISO 9001 accredited quality management system and H&S P&Ps sit within the QMS. We have developed, over the 8 years I've been with the organisation, some quite prescriptive H&S procedures which set out exactly what and how certain things need to be carried out, including specified templates for recording outcomes of different types of risk assessment. This approach was felt necessary due to the lack of consistency across our service sites in the standards of H&S, the quality of records and lack of evidence to back up H&S decisions and actions (no clear auditable trail). However, we're now in a much better place - our QMS is embedded, awareness levels are up, and managers (I believe) have a real understanding of what needs to be done, to what standard and the need to maintain good records. Generlaly we have a positive H&S Culture (most likely due to the sector we work in which is focussed on providing care and support to people with disabilities). I feel that now, we perhaps no longer need to be quite so prescriptive and can allow managers to decide their own routes to safety. It's getting to the stage that some of the prescriptive procedures may actually end up being a hinderence rather than a help to our staff, and by extension the people we support. Ultimately, what I would like to do is remove some of our prescriptive H&S procedures and replace with Policy Statements - setting out what needs to be done, but not being prescriptive about how. I'd appreciate your views or experiences in this. Many thanks Sam

A middle-path of moderating the procedure might be preferable. Throwing the baby out with the bath water etc. If nothing else, procedure serves to inform and instruct new people. From a QA p.o.v. of course, you can't readily audit "policies" - but you can procedures.

it sounds like that you have done great I congratulate you - My advices is to stick with it as in my experience the moment you let others think for themselves standards drop off and its then you have an accident and its then you end up in court where you need as much paperwork as you can have

I would go with this general approach. My experience with a client base mainly in the Motor Vehicle Retail Sector is that the policy sets out aims and objectives (the what do we intend to do) and the procedures set out when, how and by whom it is to be done. For example you might have a policy that says "All contractors working on our premises must have, and adhere to, a safe system of work" The procedure will say "Contractors who do work for us must be approved..." and the procedure would go on to spell out the detail of how they become approved and what measures they must take to convince you that they have a safe system of work. You could also spell out activities related to specific premises, e.g. "The fire alarm at X is an automatic addressable system monitored by (Alarm Company) and will be tested by (post name) at 10:00 AM every Monday" As commented by Palmer61 the idea of guidance notes is also good practice in my opinion. The route I would take would be to involve those at the sharp end in writing the guidance notes (or at least consulting them on what it is in them) and then you will get some degree of buy-in from them.

Interesting thread. I spend a good amount of time reviewing clients' policies and procedures, and I often provide them with the 'guidance notes' which are usuaully detailed reminders of why procedures are needed, why certain precautions are taken, why certain checks or tests are done, why certain records are kept etc. and I'll usually try and involve a supervisor when preparing these notes - these notes are not usually displayed anywhere they are aimed at supervisors/managers so they can refer to them or use them in training/refreshers/toolboxtalks. Posters above refer to having most detailed documentation for high risk/critical operations. That makes sense, presumably these are operations which can cause severe injury if things went wrong - like operator by-passing controls or not wearing PPE, machines needing strict maintenance schedule etc. Low risk operations tend to be less documented, the chance or severe injury is very low - however, in my experience it's those 'low risk' operations that cause most accidents, maybe minor, but I'm often reviewing accident books and seeing things like: walked into sharp object, tripped lifting awkward sized box, spring flicked face during maintenance, banged hand while pushing trolley. Usually a review of the work practices doesn't immediately come up with corrective actions/solutions, and there's a reluctance to have prescriptive procedures for 'trivial' activities as the 'general principles' or working safely should be dealing with such things, but the accident book says it all !?!

Sam A lot of very good advice already on the thread. I used to work for a very large multi-national and their approach was very good. Corporate set policy, aims and objectives and issued management procedures which were very general, i.e. that each locations should identify and assess risks associated with its (site specific) activities, it contained the principles to be adopted but left the methodology with the location. The total number of corporate "level 1" procedures was 12! At a local site level we then developed operational control documents derived from the risk assessment process, a bit like method statements. Corporate then audited each site against the management requirements allowing for different (within reason) methodologies. In the 3 roles I have had since leaving that organisation I have used exactly the same process to set up management systems to OHSAS18001 which has proved to be very effective. PM me with your email if you a bit more info. Jonty