1 / 11

Andrew Watterson Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group

“ the Lofstedt Review “RECLAIMING HEALTH AND SAFETY FOR ALL”? WHAT THE REVIEW didn’t say and could and should have said – locating a missing occupational health perspective”. Andrew Watterson Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group

ursala
Download Presentation

Andrew Watterson Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. “the Lofstedt Review “RECLAIMING HEALTH AND SAFETY FOR ALL”?WHAT THE REVIEW didn’t say and could and should have said – locating a missing occupational health perspective” Andrew Watterson Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group Centre for Public Health and Population Health Research AEW for IER May 2012

  2. What was expected of Lofstedt? • Government and Industry hopes and activist fears? • Campaigner hopes and government fears? • What we got? “Regulation has a role to play in preventing injury and ill health in the workplace” AEW for IER May 2012

  3. What was not said by Lofstedt but should have been • UK OHS record is flawed and poor on occupational health. Lofstedt argues ‘progress’ has been made in ‘health outcomes’ (p1). No sound evidence for this. • Smart regulation and deregulation has failed. • It is possible to improve OHS in UK and not run it down. There are alternatives. • Risk reduction strategies are flawed for health and safety. Risk banding of HSE is in some cases lethal. Lofstedt talks about “re-directing enforcement activity towards businesses where there is the greatest risk of injury or ill health” • Where are regulation re occupational diseases extended to cover trivial risks? Many ACOPs cover health questions and may be reviewed and viewed as too long, complex and technical? Lead? Asbestos? Rushed reviews? AEW for IER May 2012

  4. Informed or ignorant policy making in government? Is it evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence that is sought on OHS? Adam Smith Institute - source for Government ‘thinking’ on OHS Critique of OHS regulations • Risk aversion – on diseases? • Insurance not inspection (Boyland & Ambler 2007 et al) AEW for IER May 2012

  5. UK OHS record is flawed – and omits occupational disease strategy AEW for IER May 2012

  6. AEW for IER May 2012

  7. What the UK record really is:-Maplecroft Global Health and Safety Risk Index (HSRI) 2009 UK is 30th out of 176 countries and 20th out of 30 OECD nations listed Indicators including - work related fatalities and injuries - number of accidents causing work absences, - number of deaths from work related diseases - expenditure on health - life expectancy - government effectiveness • regulatory quality • the total number of ILO conventions ratified (WHO, ILO and World Bank Data) AEW for IER May 2012

  8. Risk reduction strategies in OHS are wrong. Where’s OH? AEW for IER May 2012

  9. HSE Board Meeting 2011. Priority sensible risk management developments in line with Lofstedt’ ideas? • E. Public Services • 11. Work to encourage sensible risk management and reduce risk averse behaviour has included an HSE action plan with the Scottish Schools Equipment Research Centre to produce a suite of material to promote proportionate risk management in schools. The work has the support of the Scottish Government Schools Curriculum Division and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland. AEW for IER May 2012

  10. Lofstedt Report • ‘Occupational health’ is mentioned around half a dozen times • ‘Occupational diseases’ are not mentioned at all • ‘Occupational Ill health’ is not mentioned at all • ‘Occupational cancer’ is not mentioned at all • Cancer is mentioned once with estimates of 8000 cancer deaths each year in Britain due to past work exposures • HSE medical services are not mentioned AEW for IER May 2012

  11. What Lofstedt Report said? AEW for IER May 2012

More Related