Has anyone else noticed the recent trend of safety consultants posting H&S horror stories on social media sites in order to push their own safety services? It seems fundamentally wrong to do this. Accepted, we all need to share and learn from the mistakes made throughout any industry but for me there is something sinister and immoral about posting every prosecution or fatal accident on Linkedin, twitter etc in a bid to boost business. Do we really need to justify the need for H&S as a profession this way?

Clairel, I agree any improvement to awareness is good for the profession. My thoughts were that if we constantly use the threat of HSE action as a way to improve safety uptake then we will be in trouble if the governemnt cut legislation therefore rendering this motivation tool useless.

Sinister & immoral? It is surely a fundamental aspect of marketing to highlight the situations that boost the chances of a service being used. This applies as much to our profession as to any other eg NHS showing the horrors of smoking related disease, will writers talking about the results of intestacy and accountants pointing out that HMRC have wide and effective powers. I see nothing wrong with raising awareness by using social media but like all marketing it must be done well. I will continue to republish news of H&S failures from around the world from time to time in the hope that it will raise awareness of why good H&S management is good business.