Hi Shaun
The NVQ 5 Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety Practice (3654-05, this course is based around your activities as a health and safety professional in your work place, NVQ 5 is very much evidence based you will need at least 2 good pieces of work based evidences per question some sections have 15/20 questions in them i.e. unit 501 Promote a positive health and safety culture all evidence can be cross referenced as there are around 10 units. As part of your port folio you will be required to present your qualifications.
Moving on I found that Wolverhampton collage was the cheapest for this course
If you contact Ken Davis the tutor @ (davisk@wolvcoll.ac.uk) I hope this helps

Dave

Gents,

Thank You very much for the advice i will check out all the references.

Regards

Shaun

I had the option of both back in 2007, I was in a full time H&S role in a large distribution company with plenty of evidence readily available. After a few discussions and chats on here with my Peers I chose NVQ4 (5 wasnt readily available), I used the NVQ to challenge what I already had in place. Had a few chats with providers as they are key in this, if you get on with your assessor then your life will be so much easier on the NVQ route.

That said, 6 yrs on I am still glad I chose the NVQ route - I am not academically minded but I am driven, as Duxbury37412 said, you have to motivate yourself to work through the modules.

Good Luck.

I used DTD Training, found them excellent, I have recommended them to a few others who were all positive about them.

Shaun,
I went down the NVQ route and can certainly recommend Ken Davis like Dave. I had come from a safety background in construction and was the SHEQ Manager of a Civil Engineering Company.
One of the things that struck me was that as previously mentioned you were required to provide two pieces of evidence that you had actually done. Some people on the course struggled as for example they did not write the Company Safety Policy or have any input in its review, therefore finding evidence of such was almost impossible and required them to get involved if possible.
These matters should not have been a problem as I like everyone else on the course was telephone interviewed prior to commencement to find out if I met the requirements. Therefore be honest at this stage in what you can and can not produce or it may come back to bite to later in the course.
As for time to allocate, several hundred hours, and do keep going at a steady pace. There does not appear to be too much pressure to complete but it ramps up and them the pressure does mount.
I tried to answer the questions asap after each session and then spent time collecting the evidence.
Near the end I spent most of a week editing and changing bits, as you thought of better evidence or you had had different experiences.
Now completed so it all looks a lot rosier than it did threequarters of the way through.
Anyway good luck which ever route you finally choose.

I realised that I was struggling and arranged for a meeting with my assessor and the BSC cancelled it!!!!! It would appear that as soon as they have the money they don't want to allocate the assessor any time to you.

I know what you mean I did the same with the level 4 first and struggled to find the time, but once I got into it I found it easy to complete. I know at times it's difficult and I don't know what job you do, but put time aside and have a go, make sure your not putting it off because you aren't sure what your doing. At times just thinking about it got me worried until I started and then I kicked myself for not starting earlier as it only took about 4 months, I then got told that the NVQ5 had come into play luckily I was supported by work beacuse I am sure they knew there would be a change and just wanted my money.

I did my Diploma with EEF at Woodland Grange, not the cheapest but you wont get a better standard of instructors than those guys. They are all specialists in each field, with oodles of experiance and the course folders are excellant too, this makes for a mush better chance of a first time pass in each element :0)

link to pro and cons of each

http://www.rospa.com/occ...afety-certification.aspx