Leaders of Scottish businesses and supporting organisations met on 18 January in Glasgow for the first of the Health & Safety Executive roadshows to discuss the development of a new strategy for workplace health & safety in the UK.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) wants leading industry figures and key influencers to have a say in shaping the future strategy for Great Britain’s health & safety system and is going on the road to hear those views. The roadshow will travel to six other cities over the next fortnight, finishing in London on 2 February.

Glasgow was chosen to host the first roadshow in which people and organisations are being asked to contribute ideas on what will help the countries and regions of Great Britain ‘work well’.

The roadshow coincides with the development of a new action plan by the Partnership on Health & Safety in Scotland (PHASS) to help strengthen the pattern of ownership and collective effort in continuing to improve health & safety in Scotland.

Despite being one of the safest places in the world to work, every year in Scotland there are an estimated 42,000 new incidences and rates of self-reported illness caused or made worse by a current or most recent job.

HSE has published six themes for its five-year strategy that cover a wide range of influencers, including employers, workers, local and central government, unions and other regulators. These form the basis of the current consultation.

There are three overarching aspects the new strategy will tackle:

• Taking collective ownership and looking at personal contributions to health & safety that do not cause unnecessary cost or inefficiency to people or business
• Health. More than 23million working days are lost each year through work-related ill-health and the costs to Britain are estimated at over £9.4billion per year.
• Boosting Britain’s businesses. Ensuring SMEs (in particular) get the right information at the right time and take the right action easily.

HSE says it has done much to banish the myth that health & safety equates to bureaucracy and that it actually benefits business in terms of productivity, innovation and growth.

But at the roadshows it will ask how this work can be continued over the next five years.

A multi-channel awareness campaign is underway on social, online and print media and the hashtag #HelpGBWorkWell is inviting people from all over Britain to join the conversation.

Head of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) in Scotland, Karen McDonnell, who addressed the roadshow, says: “Partnership working is vital to the future success of the health & safety system in Great Britain, which is why this roadshow is so promising.

“Multi-disciplinary partnership working has been fundamental to bringing together Scotland’s business and health & safety networks and this engagement on the future system is the next step forward.

“I understand the future of the health & safety system in Great Britain belongs not only to HSE but to everyone, and that’s why I have agreed to speak at this event, which encourages people to talk and exchange views in order to gain a broader ownership of the system as we know it.”

Dame Judith Hackitt, Chair of HSE, says: “Scotland enjoys the same record on work-related safety and health as GB as a whole, which is undoubtedly one of the best in the world.

“Ensuring Britain continues to work well is the challenge, which is why we are asking workers and employers to give us their ideas on the country’s health & safety strategy; a strategy for all, shaped by all.”