Posted By Cath H Can anyone advise me on the following subject, Method Statements or Safe system of work? (SSOW or Safe Operating Procedure SOPS ) I have a workshop manager who under his new roll is now panicking about the lack of safety in his workshop, although I have hit brick walls for 4 years with his predecessor who was not interested. He keeps asking for a format for ‘method statements’. I have told him Rome was not built in a day and to start with high risk issues, I have also advised him to write a safe system for particular tasks. Someone has told him he HAS to have Method statements. I assume a Method Statement was the same as a SSOW and that the HSAW act refers to safe systems in section 2. He is being a real pain as he is above me, if he wants to call them Methods Statements it’s up to him, there is no fixed format (or is there). Surly as long as the information is suitable & sufficient, Does it really matter? Any advice would be good

Posted By Smiff Hi there, Method Statements are a documented SSOW, and are known as SOPs, Procedures, whatever, and are used where your Risk Assessments identifies a need for stringent controls to make a task safe. When identifying the need for an MS, you need to look at the risks and consequencies, as well as the capabilities of the staff carring them out. eg is your workshop has a small highly skilled team of engineers doing regular, routine operations you may not need to document quite so much as you might if you were doing high-risk one-off operations in an unregulated environment, such as a lifting operation in the high street. In terms of format, A description of the job, the tools and competencies required, any permits or authorities needed, emergency procedures, how to the jobs safeley - broken down into sensible chunks, and Hold Points - these are the key points at which you need to check something safety-critical before proceding. I can mail you an example of ours if you wish.

Posted By Smiff I sent a couple to you, get in touch if you want to go through anything more specific.