Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

Monitoring, review and audit
105
➤
process: active monitoring
of the adequacy, 
development, implementation and
d e p l o y m e n t 
of the health and safety management system and 
the activities to promote a positive health and safety 
culture – measures of success
➤
outcomes: reactive monitoring
of adverse out-
comes resulting in injuries, ill-health, loss and acci-
dents with the potential to cause injuries, ill-health 
or loss – measures of failure.
7.5 
Measuring failure – reactive 
monitoring
So far, this chapter has concentrated on measuring activ-
ities designed to prevent the occurrence of injuries and 
work-related ill-health (active monitoring). Failures in risk 
control also need to be measured (reactive monitoring), 
to provide opportunities to check performance, learn 
from failures and improve the health and safety manage-
ment system.
Reactive monitoring arrangements include systems 
to identify and report:
➤
injuries and work-related ill-health (details of the 
incident rate calculation is given in Chapter 4)
➤
other losses such as damage to property
➤
incidents, including those with the potential to cause 
injury, ill-health or loss (near misses)
➤
hazards and faults
➤
weaknesses or omissions in performance standards 
and systems, including complaints from employees 
and enforcement action by the authorities.
Guidance on investigating and analysing these incidents 
is given in Chapter 8.
7.6 
Active monitoring – how to 
measure performance
7.6.1 Introduction
The measurement process can gather information 
through:
➤
direct observation of conditions and of people’s 
behaviour (sometimes referred to as unsafe acts and 
unsafe conditions monitoring)
➤
talking to people to elicit facts and their experiences 
as well as gauging their views and opinions
➤
examining written reports, documents and records.
These information sources can be used independently 
or in combination. Direct observation includes inspec-
tion activities and the monitoring of the work environ-
ment (e.g. temperature, dust levels, solvent levels, noise 
levels) and people’s behaviour. Each risk control system 
should have a built-in monitoring element that will defi ne 
the frequency of monitoring; these can be combined to 
form a common inspection system.