Qualifications can lead to fewer workplace accidents

The study commissioned by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) found a clear link between business investment in safety professionals and safety performance. Companies with managers who were poorly trained in health and safety had eight times more accidents at work.

The research was carried out by a team from Glasgow Caledonian University, who looked at data from contractors in the construction industry who together employed over 200,000 workers.

One of the team, senior research fellow Dr Billy Hare, said: "What we found particularly staggering was that, on average, the more qualified in health and safety the line manager in an organisation is, the less the accident rate.

"This shows that investing in health and safety training does have an impact, benefiting employees, and helping to boost productivity by reducing the considerable disruption caused by an incident causing death or injury."

'Proper investment'

The team also found that those firms which vetted their sub-contractors on health and safety had almost a 60% lower accident rate compared to those that failed to follow such procedures.

Ray Hurst, IOSH president elect, commented: "Although this is the first such UK study, these results support the case that health and safety is good for people and good for business.

"Skimping on safety has a very negative human impact indeed. It’s time to act now to get proper health and safety investment and training across all employment sectors in the UK."

He added: "Currently, the health and safety profession is not legally regulated, meaning that almost anyone can call themselves a health and safety expert, without any qualifications or experience. IOSH, the chartered body for health and safety, is calling for UK-wide legal minimums for all those practicing as health and safety professionals."

Reassuring results

Norwich Union Risk Services (NURS) training and consultancy manager, John Phillips said the research findings were of no surprise.

"We know from the training we offer here at NURS that people gaining IOSH, NEBOSH and other health and safety qualifications are in a much better position to tackle the workplace risks that really matter.

"These qualifications not only help to provide the knowledge and skills that a modern-day health and safety professional needs, but also reassure employers and associated businesses that health and safety issues will be managed effectively."

He added: "Those who are qualified tend not to focus on the kind of trivial matters that can give health and safety a bad name. As we see from this research, they actually do a great deal to protect their colleagues and members of the public from very real dangers."

NURS is a leading provider of health and safety training, regularly achieving award winning exam performance and exceptional pass rates. For more on our training services, see the link at the top of this page.