Are Safety Audits Necessary?

Many organisations have established Health and Safety Systems and assume the system will manage itself, until a mishap happens. Some conclusions are when the mishap happens 'the person didn't follow the system', such as Safe Work Instruction or minimal plant and equipment maintenance was undertaken.

The success or failure of these systems tends to rely on people enforcing or adhering to the relevant safety documentation or practices with limited monitoring or supervision. Fundamentally, some of these systems are very complex and difficult to navigate through with minimal training and education on the accessibility of the system and associated documentation.

A safety audit will assist with measuring the performance of the system and may identify some areas that are not performing to the organisations expectations or meeting compliance with relevant Australian Standards or legislation. These areas may include; Policy, Planning, Implementation, Measurement, Evaluation and Management Review.

This is an ideal time to review your Safety System with the up-coming introduction with the ISO 45001. The standard will be one of the world's most anticipated standards for occupational health and safety systems (OHS). As it will align with ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 14001 (Environment Management and builds on OHSAS 18001 which is a framework aimed at controlling risks.

HAZCON has a dedicated team of accredited safety auditors that can assist with undertaking these systems checks and provide realistic outcomes for the organisation.