Being healthy and being safe are two terms with different meanings but are very closely related
. They complement each other.
You might have heard or read on hoardings, books or online about health and safety risk assessment, health and safety audit and Health and Safety Management. What purpose do they actually fill in?
Health and Safety Risk Assessment is a process where a particular action is analyzed and determined if it would clear the benchmarks that have been set up. This work is generally carried out by an outside agency that would have a neutral approach towards this assessment.
Companies can actually hire professionals on a full time or a part time basis to maintain the level of safety measures that have been set up and do random Health and Safety Audit. This assessment and the audit are a part of a process which is called health and safety management.
A simple example to illustrate this would be of people working on a construction project. The first step to assess would be to identify if all of the equipments that they require are available and in perfect working condition. During audits the findings should be documented so that it could be followed upon as a managing process and that the safety of a person is not compromised because either the rules were not followed due to any given reason.
You might find many independent consultants on the web who specialize in this area and it could be beneficial for you even if you're a small business owner and you have people reporting under you.