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nebosh unit d examiners paper

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Occupational safety and health management systems (OSHMS) form the cornerstone of any organisation’s attempt to comply with the requirements of corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, business risk management principles.

As with any management system, an OSHMS needs to be fully integrated into the normal organisational and operational processes of the organisation. In his report on guidance for company directors on their obligations under the Combined Code, Nigel Turnbull used the term “embedded”, that’s to say they should be built in, not bolted on.
All management systems in the areas of quality, environment, business resilience and health and safety follow a similar framework, US management guru William Edwards …show more content…

To motivate individuals and groups to achieve their targets which are aimed at improving the system and safety metrics, accountabilities and timescales for completion need to be monitored closely.
If a target is set without completion dates, the task will move to the pending tray and ultimately be forgotten. Similarly, if a target is set and no individual (or group) is made accountable and given resources to see it through, then everyone knows that somebody (not them) is meant to be doing something but, in practice, no-one does anything.
So to achieve continual improvement in any management system, there must be SMAARTT targets (specific, measurable, achievable, agreed, realistic, time-bound and trackable).
Checking may well involve a combination of proactive (before the event) and reactive (after the event) measures. These include exposure monitoring, health surveillance, absence monitoring, accident and near-miss statistics, testing emergency arrangements, training record checks, as well as health and safety audits and inspections.
Regular checks of any management system are vital to ensure continual improvement, as long as the findings from such checks are promptly acted upon, as necessary.
The “act” stage involves acting on the results of your checks, taking measures to rectify concerns or gaps flagged up by monitoring to minimise risk and improve the system.
Setting individual and collective SMAARTT targets in an action plan is essential

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