RoSPA Press Office : Press Release
March 18, 2004
MINISTER SEEKS BETTER HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK
Safety Minister Des Browne will discuss the UK’s strategy for improving health and safety at work when he opens a national conference organised by the Royal Society for the Prevention on Accidents in May.
RoSPA’s national occupational health and safety congress Learning, Sharing, Moving Forward, sponsored by EDF Energy, will be held at the Salamander Suite, NEC, Birmingham, May 11-13.
Roger Bibbings RoSPA Occupational Safety Adviser, said: “Maintaining momentum for better health and safety at work is a tough challenge whether you are a Government Minister or a busy health and safety professional or safety representative in a fast-moving commercial organisation.
“The Minister will set the scene for three days in which we will look at new ways of thinking, and also try to learn from other people’s successes and failures.”
The programme has been designed so that presentations on policy and research will be accompanied by case studies showing how the ideas involved have been applied in practice.
Some sessions will cover enforcement and penalties for health and safety offences and how to improve the ability of organisations to learn from accidents and incident investigations.
Strong emphasis will be placed on achieving improvement targets, whether at national, sector or individual business level as well as on addressing health and safety performance as a strategic business objective.
There will also be emphasis on health at work, including a presentation by Bill Callaghan, chair of the Health and Safety Commission, on tackling stress. Other sessions will look at reducing alcohol and drug problems and managing asbestos in buildings.
The congress is the premier meeting place for anyone involved in the occupational safety world, including company directors, senior managers, health and safety professionals, risk managers and business advisers.
The event runs alongside Safety and Health Expo 2004 and the RoSPA occupational health and safety awards ceremonies. Congress booking line: 0121 248 2120 or visit www.rospa.com/shwcongress
