The benefits of health and safety inspections and audits will guarantee that your place of work is compliant with both health and safety regulations and your company’s internal health and safety policy and protocols, with the intention of decreasing injury and ill-health through the development of an optimistic H&S organisational culture.
Insurance companies, pre-qualification questionnaires, contractual requirements, and safety schemes In procurement, it will also often necessitate evidence that audits have occurred.
Our consultants are capable of helping you perform internal audits to evaluate your current compliance with health and safety preparations and to give feedback on how to get better.
What is an audit?
An audit concentrates on the methods within a business, involving risk assessments, training specifications, duties, documentation, and more.
Internal audits consist of a modified health and safety assessment of your workplace, followed by a thorough written audit report covering:
- Audit result
- Consultant proposals
- Responsibilities and time frames for activities to be finished
These internal audits can be completed at the regularity that suits you, your business, and your customers.
Why have a health and safety audit?
Logically, the benefits of health and safety inspections are to progress your site’s health and safety; though, there are advantages within this to be achieved from an internal audit, such as:
- Analysing problems into smaller, specific actions
- Ensuring controls are cost-effective and sensible
- Access to professional counsel
- Guaranteeing your business is ready for an external audit
- Ensure adherence to guidelines and arrangements.
What is an inspection?
An inspection vary from an audit in that it evaluates what can be seen during the day rather than looking into processes for traceability. A health and safety check may involve:
- Surveying relevant documents, such as maintenance documentation or risk assessments
- Watching working practices to assure they are being enforced safely and in line with RAMS
- Checking that equipment is in secure condition
- Checking that the control processes are used
The intention of a health and safety inspection is to verify that your workplace and work activities are healthy and safe and to spot any actions needed to develop your workplace health and safety.
Nevertheless, SSIPs and Pre-Qualification Questionnaires prefer audits over inspections due to the in-depth nature of health and safety audits.
What is SSIP?
Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) is the mutual recognition scheme for occupational health and safety standards, mainly within construction. SSIP facilitates mutual recognition between health and safety pre-qualification schemes, preserving the time, effort, and cost of multiple credentials.
It decreases duplication and burden on suppliers to have numerous certifications for different schemes, saving them time and money and allowing them to focus on the job.
If you have OHSAS 18001 or ISO 45001 accreditation with NQA, then NQA, as a Registered Member of SSIP, can also certify you against the guidelines of SSIP at your subsequent planned audit activity where an onsite audit happens.
Background to SSIP
The CDM Regulations bring in Stage 1 Core Criteria for reviewing the health and safety capabilities of contractors and consultants working in the construction industry.
This allowed current H&S prequalification schemes to assemble and formalise mutual recognition (already in process amongst some) wherever it was convenient to do so, and so the SSIP was born.
SSIP was later improved with the opening of the Health and Safety pre-qualification in the 2013 edition of the government-backed construction pre-approval document PAS 91.
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) was influential in the formation of, and continues to support, the SSIP Forum. It envisions an accreditation certification from a SSIP Scheme associate as ‘deemed to satisfy’ the Core Criteria requirements.
SSIP is a significant move towards combining and building assurance in Stage 1 pre-qualification in the UK construction industry.
Benefits of SSIP
The benefits of health and safety inspections, specifically SSIP, are that you can use your NQA SSIP Registered Scheme certification to be acknowledged by other SSIP Member schemes, such as CHAS, EXOR, and Safe Contractor. This reduces time and money by reducing replication within pre-qualification schemes.
SSIP accreditation can benefit construction firms and related businesses of any size through:
- Streamlining the application process when requesting a job
- Providing immediate safety credentials, as well as a level of assurance and legality for your business
- Decreasing costs connected with prequalification administration and organisational work
- Optimising the supply chain so you can focus on satisfying project-specific requirements
- Providing an important marketing tool that can elevate your profile
- Ensure your business is listed in the searchable SSIP online portal
- Helping you to handle risks more efficiently as part of a broader culture of safety.
Whatever your role within CDM, there are a variety of justifiable reasons to pursue SSIP registration along with or in addition to OH&S compliance.
One of the benefits of health and safety inspections, particularly the SSIP Forum, is the HSE’s message that a consumer can be confident that a supplier who is registered or accredited as compliant or authorised with an SSIP member has been assessed to the Core Criteria standard (Stage 1).
The buyer, having confirmed their status, will only then want to focus on the assignment or job-specific assessment (Stage 2).
Are you prepared to begin your journey? iSafe will provide assistance in gaining and maintaining certification and will enjoy the benefits of health and safety inspections.
