Posted By Kevin McCloskey
Does anyone else think that 4 or 5 days is too long for a 'Managing Safely' course?
I work for a University and there is no way that any of our managers would commit to this length of time (even if it were broken up into day-long units). I notice that IOSH have canvassed the opinion from course providers (presumably many of whom would be only too happy to make a better living from running a long course), but they don't say whether they've spoken to those on the receiving end! Also, if 'Working Safely' is a day and costs £900, then how much is 'Managing Safely' going to cost?
Regards, Kevin

Posted By Sean McMahon
Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to how you could give some worthwhile knowledge about H&S inside 4-5 days without trivialising the whole exercise. If people in senior management in this age of CSR and safety management systems are not prepared to put some time and effort into their legal responsibilities they are frankly unworthy of the positions they hold. Whether or not the courses are of any real value is entirely another question.

Posted By Adrian Watson
Dear All,
I see a number of important issues here. IOSH describe the purpose of Managing Safety is:

"To ensure that safety requirements are appreciated by people employed as line managers, and to enable them to review their own departmental systems for safety, introducing new controls or implementing changes as appropriate to ensure safety in the workplace."

When you look at the syllabus and the fact that this is a five day course, it appears that managing safety is a "baby" safety managers course. I for one think that there needs to be a short one day health and safety management course for non-safety managers.

Furthermore if HSC want’s organisations to appoint competent persons and ensure managers are trained to safely manage, HSC should get off the fence and set down standards on what types and numbers of competent persons that organisations need to appoint and what training is required by managers.

If HSC can do this for First Aid, why can't it do it for Health and Safety Practitioners, Occupational Health Doctors and Nurses, Occupational Hygienists, Ergonomists, etc? Until this is done we as a nation are never going to reduce the numbers of people suffering ill health and injury at work.

Regards Adrian Watson

Posted By Alan Hoskins
Hi Kevin,

You may know that a group of us in Wales are developing our own version of Managing Safely specifically targeted at Universities.

We have struggled to keep the content down but it still requires four days presently (including the exam and workplace assessment). The USHA Executive asked if it could be shortened also (particularly the Law module). We are looking at it again...

Five days for the course does seem excessive.

Alan
University of Glamorgan