Monitoring and Review Flashcards

What role do Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) play in health and safety management?

Answer: They provide measurable, quantifiable targets that enable the organisation to track progress towards safety objectives and identify areas needing improvement

KPIs are specific, measurable indicators that allow organisations to track safety performance against defined objectives. They translate broad safety goals into quantifiable targets, enabling data-driven decision making, resource allocation, and identification of trends. Both leading and lagging KPIs should be used for a balanced view.

What is the purpose of a safety committee in the monitoring and review process?

Answer: To provide a forum where employer and worker representatives can jointly review safety performance, discuss concerns, examine monitoring data, and recommend improvements

Safety committees provide a formal mechanism for joint consultation between employers and workers on health and safety matters. They review monitoring data, discuss inspection and audit findings, examine accident trends, consider worker concerns, and make recommendations for improvement. They are required under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 when requested.

Which of the following would be considered a proactive (leading) measure in a health and safety monitoring programme?

Answer: Regular systematic checks that safety-critical maintenance is being carried out on schedule

Checking that safety-critical maintenance is being performed on schedule is proactive — it verifies that a preventive control is in place and working before equipment failure causes an incident. This is a leading indicator because it measures a safety input (maintenance compliance) rather than an outcome (injury or failure).

How should an organisation determine the frequency and scope of its health and safety audits?

Answer: Based on factors including risk profile, previous audit findings, incident history, changes in the organisation, and regulatory requirements

Audit frequency and scope should be risk-based, considering the hazard profile of different areas, findings from previous audits, incident trends, organisational changes, new legislation, and the maturity of the safety management system. Higher-risk areas or those with previous non-conformances should be audited more frequently.

What is the 'accident triangle' or 'safety pyramid' and how does it relate to monitoring?

Answer: A model showing that for every serious injury there are progressively more minor injuries, near-misses, and unsafe acts/conditions — suggesting that monitoring lower-level events can predict and prevent serious ones

The safety pyramid (attributed to Heinrich and later Bird) illustrates that serious injuries sit atop a much larger base of minor injuries, near-misses, and unsafe conditions. By monitoring and addressing the more frequent lower-level events, organisations can reduce the probability of serious incidents occurring. This underpins the importance of near-miss reporting.

What should happen with the findings from health and safety monitoring and review activities?

Answer: They should be communicated to relevant stakeholders, used to update risk assessments, inform training needs, drive corrective actions, and feed into management review for continual improvement

Monitoring and review findings must feed into the continuous improvement cycle. This means communicating results to those who need to act, updating risk assessments where new hazards or control failures are identified, revising training programmes, implementing corrective actions, and presenting trends to senior management for strategic review and resource decisions.