Introduction

Most people would agree that poor working conditions of any type have the potential to affect an employee’s health and safety.

It would also be agreed that our aim should be to eliminate or at least minimise the risk of accident or injury; and to protect employees from the effects of ill-health caused by their working conditions.

However, those aims are not that simple to achieve in practice.

Take almost any country in the world and people are still killed either at work or as a result of work activities; many more have non-fatal injuries at work or suffer from work-related illhealth.

The cost of workplace accidents or diseases is very high.

There is both a direct cost to the employer in lost working time, medical costs, repair or replacement of equipment, etc., and also a much higher indirect cost which affects the injured or sick employees and their families.

This element sets out a framework of health and safety by looking at the practical, moral and financial issues surrounding the goal of a safe workplace environment, and the legal and organisational framework which seeks to ensure that goal.

The Multi-Disciplinary Nature of Health and Safety

Health and safety at work is based on an understanding of the causes of accidents and other events at the workplace which lead to harm to employees and others who may be close by.

In general terms, though, this is perhaps not as easy as may at first be thought.

The roots of a systematic approach to health and safety lie in the development of largescale manufacturing operations.

In the past, factory machinery was operated with little or no regard to the safety of employees and it was not unusual for factory staff (including young children) to suffer bodily injury from unguarded machines.

Reacting to these effects, the causes were addressed by concerned factory owners and politicians, allied to increasing pressure from employees themselves, by putting in protective measures (such as machine guards) and developing safer working practices.

As scientific knowledge has grown and political and social concern over workplace health and safety has broadened, the effects of work have been studied extensively.

The range of issues identified, which started with those clearly identifiable physical injuries such as losing fingers or arms, has widened to include less apparent injuries (such as deteriorating eyesight and bad backs) and illnesses (both physical and psychological), which very often build up over time, rather than being caused by a single incident.

The causes of these problems themselves are often not easily identifiable.

OSH Today

Occupational safety and health today, then, has moved a long way from its engineering roots and brings together a wide range of subject specialities to investigate what the illeffects of work are and what causes them.

It draws on the study of both the physical world – chemistry, physics, biology, etc. – and the social world, of how and why people behave as they do.

As a health and safety practitioner, you would not expect to be familiar
with the detail of all these subjects, but should be aware of the range of different disciplines which contribute to knowledge and understanding of health and safety issues.

These include:

• Chemistry and physics, which explain the properties of different substances and the ways in which they behave in different circumstances, e.g. electricity, explosive or flammable materials, acid, etc.

• Biological sciences (including toxicology, hygiene and medicine), which explain the composition and processes of living organisms, e.g. the effects of harmful organisms on people, the responses and reactions of the human body when under physical stress, etc.

• Engineering, which is responsible for the construction of buildings and mechanical processes, e.g. the safe design of machinery and vehicles, fireproofing buildings, etc.

• Psychology, which attempts to explain the behaviour of the individual, e.g. the effects of stress on the mind, the motivation behind the behaviour of individuals and groups at the workplace, etc.

• Sociology, which attempts to explain the behaviour of people in groups, e.g. management processes, patterns of work, communication in organisations, etc.

• The law, which contains the rules and regulations of society, e.g. the mass of law which deals with workplace activities.