Verify the effectiveness of your Security Management System

The planning and implementation of a good health and safety management system does not guarantee the complete exclusion of the enterprise from exposure to possible accidents. Even less so, health and safety management will have gaps where the company neglects constant updating and therefore continuous improvement to its health and safety plan.

Analyse accidents and missed accidents

Although the occurrence of an accident or incident in your business means that the management system has failed, or at least it has flaws, this is an opportunity to meet those failures. If an uncomfortable situation or a real accident is observed, it will be your obligation to investigate its causes and organize interventions to prevent similar events from recurring in the future, such attitude will avoid the succession of similar errors. Never conduct the investigation alone but rely on the collaboration of the head of the Prevention and Protection Service (RSPP), the persons in charge and all those involved. Prepare an action plan with the corrective measures identified, indicating for each person responsible and the date by which the activity must be completed.

Manage non-conformities and identify corrective actions

If accidents are the clearest signal for detecting any exposure to the risk of accidents, it is also true that there are prevention methods that could prevent the occurrence of the accident as a precautionary measure. Tools such as periodic inspections and assessments allow you to identify any deviations from legal requirements or internal procedures. The preparation of a real control system will allow you to organize regularly inspections and verifications, examine in detail every deviation, identify actions to avoid repetition, through preventive and corrective actions.

Evaluate your efforts to keep the system running

Monitoring is also essential in order to ensure an adequate system for the protection of health and safety. You will need to regularly measure and monitor the performance of your health and safety management system and the achievement of the goals you set. To do this, you will need to organize checks that international standards define as "internal audits", that is, self-assessments that will allow you to measure the results achieved autonomously and objectively. Every year you should organise a meeting with all the functions of your company engaged in the prevention of risks in the workplace to plan together the days in which to carry out evaluations.

For further information, please consult the following websites:

INAIL

The European Union portal

Updated on