HSE guidelines on maintenance - do you comply?

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has guidelines for the effective leadership of health and safety in an organisation, namely INDG 417, Leading health and safety at work - Leadership actions for directors and board members. It has recently identified the three main causes of hazards introduced through maintenance:

• Scheduled maintenance missed
• Competence not demonstrated
• Change control (lack of)

The new INDG417 guidelines were issued in September 2009 jointly by the HSE and the Institute of Directors (IoD). This was in response to the Corporate Manslaughter & Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

On page 5, the reporting requirement is stated as: The board should ensure that appropriate weight is given to reporting both:

• Preventive information (such as progress of training and maintenance programmes) and
• Incident data (such as accident and sickness absence rates)

MCP's maintenance benchmarking (AMIS audit) findings indicates that a number of companies do not have these reports in place. Implementing best practice in maintenance will ensure that companies comply with the HSE guidelines.

MCP offers an free initial two-hour, on-site consultation to make an initial assessment and recommendations. For further information and advice please contact Sarah James at MCP Consulting and Training on +44 (0)121 506 9034 or email [email protected].