EMPLOYEE WELLBEING
Accident prevention as a public health issue
The man tasked with transforming the nation’s health service has promised a “paradigm shift” in the way government approaches public health. To do this, Andrew Lansley, the secretary of state for health, has already pledged to strengthen the role of local government, improve local accountability and reward progress in communities. He has also talked about tackling health issues holistically by “using local voluntary and charitable organisations much more” in order to cut across boundaries, encourage innovation and merge budgets. But how will such a vision work in practice, asks Tom Mullarkey MBE
D
Tom Mullarkey MBE is chief executive of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
espite appearing to place a premium on the prevention
of ill health caused by “social epidemics” like obesity, smoking and alcohol, Mr Lansley has so far made no mention of the need to prevent deaths and injuries caused by accidents.
And that is a worrying omission; not least because 13,500 people died of an accident in the UK last year, with about 40,000 suffering life-changing injuries.
At a time when the public sector is bracing itself for multi-billion pound cuts and those in government are talking about a fundamental change in the state’s relationship to the individual, there is widespread uncertainty about the role of local authorities in this area.
But one thing we do know is that councils will be expected to take on the role of promoting public health from the NHS which is about to see the abolition of strategic health authorities and primary care trusts.
It is also likely that local authorities will have to fill the void created by the axing, streamlining or merging of several “arms length” quangos in this sector.
Workplace challenges for local authorities
To meet the challenges created by the current economic
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climate, many councillors and council officers might end up looking to outsource more local authority services to private businesses, voluntary organisations and charities.
If this happens, more effective pre-qualification assessment of health and safety arrangements will be needed - especially among voluntary organisations whose management teams may need “professionalising”.
However, outsourcing work does not relieve local authorities of their responsibilities.
Once contracts are awarded, there is the continuing problem of monitoring how well health and safety requirements are being met by partner organisations.
Apart from the moral and legal case for ensuring the safety of staff, there is also the business case as any failure to protect workers adequately could damage the delivery of important services and blight reputations.
As such, local authorities must continue to consult employees and to set targets for improvements: especially in areas such as stress, sickness and absence.
In addition, more still needs to be done to protect people who drive for work. A programme
that helps bosses manage occupational road risk could significantly help to reduce the tragic toll of death and injury on our roads.
Data and training
To help all tiers of government use their resources wisely, it is vital that data is collected in a systematic way to allow comparability. This will aid prioritisation and assist in target setting and evaluation. It is a source of great concern to RoSPA that Whitehall stopped publishing statistics for UK home and leisure accidents in 2002.
There is also a serious lack of accident prevention training and risk awareness among professionals at all levels and this must be addressed across the board, from project managers to engineers, teachers to architects, GPs to health visitors, residential care workers to product designers. RoSPA would like to see many more professional course syllabi containing basic core competence information relevant to safety and accident prevention.
Road safety
The stability of staffing levels and the retention of “expertise” are both vital if local providers are to make the impact they should. Fluctuating or insecure funding levels eventually tell
Sep/Oct 10
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