Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

7.1 
Introduction
This chapter concerns the monitoring of health and 
safety performance, including both positive measures 
like inspections and negative measures like injury statis-
tics. It is about reviewing progress to see if something 
better can be done and auditing to ensure that what has 
been planned is being implemented.
Measurement is a key step in any management 
process and forms the basis of continuous improve-
ment. If measurement is not carried out correctly, the 
effectiveness of the health and safety management 
system is undermined and there is no reliable informa-
tion to show managers how well the health and safety 
risks are controlled.
Managers should ask key questions to ensure that 
arrangements for health and safety risk control are in 
place, comply with the law as a minimum, and operate 
effectively.
Proactive monitoring
, by taking the initiative 
before things go wrong, involves routine inspections 
and checks to make sure that standards and policies 
are being implemented and that controls are working. 
Reactive monitoring
, after things go wrong, involves 
looking at historical events to learn from mistakes and 
see what can be put right to prevent a recurrence.
The UK HSE’s experience is that organizations fi nd 
health and safety performance measurement a diffi cult 
subject. They struggle to develop health and safety 
performance measures which are not based solely on 
injury and ill-health statistics.
7.2 
The traditional approach to 
measuring health and safety 
performance
Senior managers often measure company perform-
ance by using, for example, percentage profi t, return on 
investment or market share. A common feature of the 
measures would be that they are generally positive in 
nature – which demonstrates achievement – rather than 
negative, which demonstrates failure.
Yet, if senior managers are asked how they measure 
their companies’ health and safety performance, it 
is likely that the only measure would be accident or 
injury statistics. While the general business perform-
ance of an organization is subject to a range of positive 
measures, for health and safety it too often comes down 
to one negative measure, injury and ill-health statistics – 
measures of failures.
Health and safety differs from many areas measured 
by managers because improvement in performance 
means fewer outcomes from the measure (injuries or 
ill-health) rather than more. A low injury or ill-health 
rate trend over years is still no guarantee that risks are 
being controlled and that incidents will not happen in 
the future. This is particularly true in organizations where 
major hazards are present but there is a low probability of 
accidents.
There is no single reliable measure of health and 
safety performance. What is required is a ‘basket’ of 
measures, providing information on a range of health and 
safety issues.
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