Comments sought on draft HSC Science Strategy

HSC press release C001:05 - 10 January 2005

The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) has launched consultation on the draft HSC Science Strategy 2005-2008 - Gathering Evidence; Developing Understanding; Identifying Solutions. The Strategy describes how both in-house scientific expertise and commissioned science will be used to support the strategic programmes, through which HSE will deliver the HSC Business Strategy .

The Strategy shows HSC’s continued commitment to high quality scientific and technological underpinning, which is essential in enabling HSE to continue to be an effective regulator. The scientific expertise will come from Commissioned Science and internal expertise from HSE and the Health and Safety Laboratory.

HSE’s Chief Scientist Dr Paul Davies said:

“HSE regulates health and safety across a wide range of workplaces and industry sectors, often involving technically complex processes and giving rise to a diverse range of hazards and risks. It is essential therefore that HSE makes the most effective use of its science and engineering resources to help achieve the HSC’s vision of a record of workplace health and safety that leads the world.

The world of work is changing and HSE needs to anticipate and respond to these changes. The new science strategy sees a continuation of the trend of recent years towards more work in areas such as human factors, statistics and evaluation and less in the more traditional areas. Newer areas of research include Musculoskeletal Disorders and Stress. We recognise the maturity of some areas of industry, such as major hazards, and will expect industry to do more.“

The final version of the HSC Science Strategy will be published early in 2005.

Notes to editors

1. The strategic programmes are:

Health and Safety Hazards – Falls from Height; Musculoskeletal Disorders; Work Related Stress; Workplace Transport; Slips and Trips; Chemicals; Noise and Hand Arm Vibration.

Sectors – Agriculture; Construction; Health Services; Government Setting an Example; Manufacturing, Utilities, Services and Transport.

Better Health at Work Partnership - Occupational Health and Safety Support; Corporate Responsibility and Accountability; Worker Involvement.

Local Authority Partnership

Major Hazards – Chemical Industries; Specialised Industries; Offshore; Rail; Nuclear.

2. The science strategy comprises the following main sections:

• A set of principles for the strategic use of science, which set out for what purpose and in what ways science will be used;
• The contribution that science can make to the strategic themes featured in the HSC strategy;
• The research priorities for each of the Strategic Programmes through which HSE will seek to deliver the HSC strategy – Sectors, Health and Safety Hazards, Major Hazards, Local Authority Partnership and Better Health at Work Partnership;
• The ways in which we communicate details of our science activities;
• Collaboration with other organisations across the UK, Europe and internationally that have an interest in the science relating to occupational health and safety;
• Details of HSE’s science system, dealing with in-house expertise, including the Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) and externally commissioned research and support.

3. Themes common to all the Strategic Programmes (SP) are emerging:

• Developing the evidence base;
• Developing the understanding of the impact of HSE’s interventions;
• Establishing the intervention-effect business model for each SP, formulating agreed trajectories to show progress against the strategic targets and developing more robust indicators to measure progress against these trajectories;
• Getting greater involvement of stakeholders;
• Understanding how to communicate better with our stakeholders.

4. As a result there will be increasing effort on statistical work, evaluation and human factors. New initiatives include:

• A new workplace health and safety survey to enhance our data on occupational injury and ill health;
• Increased effort on horizon scanning to identify issues with the potential to change or present significant new workplace risks in the medium to long term;
• A reduction in major hazards spend to reflect the mature status of these industries;
• Local Authorities will receive funding to pilot their use of HSL’s scientific resources to support their delivery.

The draft strategy is available on the HSE website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/consult/2005.htm

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