HSE publishes new training guidance to help cut cost of work-related accidents and ill-health

On 9 November, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published Health and safety training - what you need to know for employers, and Effective health and safety training: a trainer's resource pack.

These new publications will help employers and trainers to provide effective health and safety training for their employees. The guidance covers all organisations across industry, but will be particularly useful to small firms.

Timothy Walker, HSE's Director General, said:

"Employers have a legal and moral responsibility for the health and safety of their work force - and effective training throughout the organisation is central to this."

"Most health and safety failures are avoidable - they are due to poor management and ignorance of good practice. Employers, in consultation with workers, are key to driving up standards and improving the working environment. This new guidance will give exactly the kind of help employers and trainers need to meet their health and safety responsibilities effectively - and to avoid the considerable cost of not doing so."

The free leaflet Health and Safety Training - what you need to know provides pointers to employers about who needs health and safety training, how training can be delivered, brief guidance on the law and advice about where to find further information.

Effective Health and Safety Training: a trainers resource pack has been custom made for trainers to provide them with everything they need to give the right health and safety messages. It could be particularly useful for any small firms which want to provide in-house training. It is in a loose-leaf format, so that parts of it can be photocopied as handouts or used with overhead projection equipment during training exercises. It is divided into five steps:

• How to decide who needs training, including an activity selector with paths to follow which lead to appropriate activities.
• How to decide training priorities by tackling top priorities first and discussing and agreeing the priorities with colleagues.
• How to choose training methods, including numbers of trainees and the amount of time required.
• How to deliver training, including: how to prepare both yourself and activities; tailoring training to your organisation; resources needed; choosing a venue and techniques for getting people involved.
• How to check, in both the short and long term, that training is working, including evaluation forms.

These publications are part of a drive to cut work related accidents. On 7 June 2000 the Government and Health and Safety Commission launched the Revitalising Health and Safety initiative. It aims to achieve, by the year 2010, the following improvement targets: reduce the number of working days lost from work-related injuries and ill-health by 30 per cent; reduce the incidence of people suffering from work-related ill-health by 20 per cent; and reduce the rate of fatal and major injuries by 10 per cent. There is an additional target of achieving half of each improvement by the year 2004.

The trainers resourse pack Effective Health and Safety Training is available in our Training Shop. You will also find a selection of other training books and resources. Click here to visit the shop.