'Healthy work embedded in new UK Industrial Strategy,' IOSH says

The strategy, revealed on Monday 27 November by Business Secretary Greg Clark MP, aims to improve productivity.

IOSH has highlighted a number of key areas in the White Paper which tie in with its own work and that of the wider occupational safety and health profession.

They include recognising the importance of workers and inclusive workplaces in driving the UK’s future prosperity.

IOSH says that it has done substantial work in this area. Its Life Savings campaign demonstrated how health and safety saves money as well as lives, and it has promoted sustainability and fairness within supply chains.

The Government has an ambition to see people thrive by doing ‘good work’, something IOSH has promoted for years and wishes to help develop as a common set of principles and measures on the quality of work. The Institution funded research into ‘good work’ in 2011.

IOSH’s emphasis on the need to provide inclusive and flexible working environments, accommodating the needs of older workers, carers and those with physical and mental health conditions, features in the White Paper.

The Institution adds that it has done a large amount of work, including research, into older workers, the fit note system, and returns to work after cancer and common mental disorders.

IOSH promotes designing-in health and safety, so is encouraged that the ‘transforming construction programme’ intends to provide safer and healthier places to work.

The Institution is also keen that high-quality apprenticeships, as part of ‘sector deals’, include upskilling to embed good practice and ensure long, healthy and successful careers.

IOSH has joined forces with leading employers across a broad range of sectors to support development of the UK’s new Safety, Health and Environment Trailblazer Apprenticeship.

Richard Jones, head of policy and public affairs at IOSH, said: “We were very interested to see the Government’s new industrial strategy. To help ensure the UK is as productive as possible and harnesses all its talents, it’s vital the strategy has good safety and health at its heart.

“So, we’re pleased that this strategy begins to take the right steps to enhance worker protection. There’s no doubt that productivity and successful innovation go hand-in-hand with safety and health.”