The monitoring and measuring of health and safety performance is a key component of a company's health and safety management process, as it allows management to see the effectiveness of any new policies and procedures that have been implemented recently. Without proper measurements to see the results of any changes, it is impossible to know whether those changes are having the required effect. If they are, they should be kept. If they are not, then further changes are needed, or a completely new approach adopted. In order to be useful, measurements must be reliable and accurate, otherwise the whole system is undermined, and much-needed changes to prevent future accidents or illness may not be introduced. Examples include reporting all accidents, even minor ones where the person was treated from items in the first aid box and did not need any time off work. Whilst it is tempting for a person not to bother reporting such a minor accident, it may be the case that the same equipment of process is causing this minor injury quite often, and a simple health and safety measure could be introduced to prevent it occurring, and possibly preventing a more serious injury in the future. Many companies struggle with developing health and safety performance measures, offering focusing on a single statistic such as accident numbers. To be truly effective, a range of measurements is needed covering a variety of health and safety issues, which means if one statistic is not accurate (e.g. minor accidents are not being reported), other measurements will help to contribute to the overall picture.
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