April 28 2017 marks World Day for Safety and Health at Work. Organised by the International Labour Organization (ILO), their figures show that more than 6,300 people die each day (that’s over 2.3 million a year) as a result of work-related activities, and in total over 300 million accidents occur on the job annually.
The ILO’s awareness-raising campaign, is intended to focus international attention on the magnitude of the problem and on how promoting and creating a safety and health culture can help reduce the number of work-related deaths and injuries.
As a member of the Lloyd’s Register group (LR), LRQA is not only embedded in a culture of safety, but also offers a range of assessment and training services within this arena. To help organisations reduce work-related accidents, injuries and diseases the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is working on a standard that will provide an international framework for occupational health and safety (OH&S) – the upcoming ISO 45001, Steve Williams, LRQA Systems and Governance Manager, an external liaison member of ISO/PC 283 who participates in the task group meetings, said, “With the publication of ISO 45001 DIS2 in May 2017, the draft international standard (DIS) has now entered into a ballot period which will end 13 July 2017. This voting stage enables ISO members involved in its development to vote on the current draft before moving closer to publication, which based on current information from ISO is expected to be in February 2018.”
James Pomeroy, Group HSES Director at Lloyd’s Register said “We welcome this annual initiative by the ILO and are pleased to participate through a series of health and safety activities in our main offices. Safety has been at the heart of our work since 1760 and the health, safety and welfare of our employees is our top priority. To strengthen our safety culture and to help further improve our safety performance, we have introduced a three year strategy which is founded upon a clear aspiration that is both engaging and challenging: Zero Harm to people. Through the programme, we aim to ‘make safety personal’ to every employee and improve the focus on clear visible leadership of safety, strengthen local accountability and define safety critical behaviours.”
With some of the world's leading standards being revised, LRQA is at the forefront of communicating the changes. We offer a range of assessment and training services, all aimed at helping to ensure that organisations worldwide have a smooth transition to the new standards.
For more information, email us or visit our ISO Standards Update page.