All,

Not one to drop a greande and run, but I would be interested in getting your views on a statement made by the Chief Medical Officer at EEF in the latest IOSH offering....“My view is you cannot be a health and safety practitioner unless you are a chartered member of IOSH.” 

I can't imagine this comment will be hugely popular....(more to the point, surely to get to CMIOSH it'd be 'quite helpful' for you to be actually practicing health and safety...)

http://www.ioshmagazine.com/article/dr-sayeed-khan-eef

Open discussion and debate is wanted!

Jamie

Just shows how out of touch with reality some people are. What about those who have qualified as members of IIRSM? Are they automatically incompetent. Also IOSH includes the word 'health'. How many CMIOSH members can honestly claim that they are experts on the health aspects of health and safety? In my own specialised area of activity I see many who are full members of IOSH whose knowledge is very limited.

Chris

"When advising employers on health and safety provision at EEF, he has always argued they should recruit only CMIOSH practitioners"

If every employer thought like that, nobody would ever achieve CMIOSH!

I am 24 years old and I am continuously caught in the catch 22 cycle of not being able to get the job without experience, but not being able to get the experience without the job. These types of statements are so frustrating for me; I may be young, I may not be chartered, but I'm damned good at my job. It's so difficult for young people in safety to get taken seriously, these statements only add to this.

Originally Posted by: WatsonD

I think he was wanting to put some clarity as to what makes a H&S practitioner, and to ensure a way of requiring for them to keep up-to-date and relevant. Whilst I don't agree with his sweeping statement, I do think that H&S could do with better standardisation, like other professions, such as: lawyers, doctors, pilots or electricians, etc.

Well let’s see:

Lawyers- that’s solicitors who are run by the Law Society and Barristers who are looked after by Bar Standards Board (which incorporates the Inns of Court). Although in theory the two sides of the legal profession do different things it is now possible for solicitors to act as advocates in any court and for barristers to give legal advice directly to clients.

Medical doctors can be members of several colleges including Surgery and Physicians and they can obtain qualifications in a variety of ways including from the Society of Apothecaries.

Pilots have to hold a pilot’s licence but that it granted by the CAA which is a government non departmental body. Should the HSE grant licence to H&S professionals?

Electricians have to be registered to be able to do part P work.

Apart from the sparkies it’s a bit of a mess, loads of rival bodies and overlaps- bit like Health and Safety really.  The question is what good a very tight licencing type arrangement would do? It might create whole load of generalists but what use would they be dealing with sector specific issues. I would not go within a mile of CDM but put me in lab with chemicals and biological agents and I happy as Larry.

Being a doctor does not make them a specialist in any particular discipline. My GP is a doctor, but I would not expect him to be competent in brain surgery! Being a pilot is a basis. However, that pilot must have additional training and certification to fly a particular type of aeroplane. Being CMIOSH does not, in my opinion, make a person competent in all aspects of health and safety.  I am not CMIOSH. To obtain this would require a massive investment in aspects of health and safety that are of no particular help to me in my specialist field and that I would never use, time and money that I would rather spend on extending knowledge in the one specific aspec in which I work.

Chris.

And I save £160 per year. My CMIOSH lapsed quite a few years ago. Wasn't needed.

That is his view and he is entitled to it.

What becomes a problem is when the sheep start to herd together for fear of being out of step with the concensus of such "enlightened opinion" failing to take responsibility for their own actions e.g. Rigger boots banned, Build UK hard hat colour scheme, inappropriate eye protection policies, Hi-Vis worn inside factories

Lets get something very straight from the start - list CMIOSH as the standard and someone will set up a different scheme after all we are still in the EU free market so such a monopolistic elitism would not be permitted - then we end up with the mess akin to that of contractor safety schemes/cards.

Drive elitisim in to a role and the salary expectations rise with fewer employers able to afford "competent" advice stifling rather than supporting business.

I am not CMIOSH, have no intention of becoming so and have no drivers within my current sphere of employment to do so.