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Health and safety

The health and safety of employees and contractors is an absolute priority for GSK. We have programmes to systematically assess the risks associated with our operations. We monitor performance and the causes of incidents. We aim to assess what can be learned and take action to protect employees and others in the workplace. We need to improve implementation at some sites.

Our aim is to eliminate all work-related injuries and illnesses (I&I). Our main measure is the number of cases resulting in time off work (lost-time cases) and our target over the last 5 years has been to reduce the number per 100,000 hours worked by 15% every year. We achieved the target on average for the first two years but the rate has remained almost constant since 2003, so we did not meet the five-year target.

We will be setting a new I&I target for 2006-2010 as part of the Plan for Excellence 2006-2015, and will set targets for reportable I&I - cases that GSK defines as more serious than first aid. Some of these may also be reported under government regulations in some countries. Safety theory suggests that addressing reportable I&I will help to eliminate risks and hazards, which should lead to fewer reportable cases as well as lost-time I&I cases.

About the health and safety section of this report
This section contains information about how we manage health and safety as part of overall EHS management and describes our programmes. It reports injury and illness rates, highlights serious incidents and fatalities, and covers health and safety audits of GSK operations.

Our programmes cover a wide range of H&S aspects, from providing safety training for sales employees, who tend to have the highest number of fatalities, to working with all employees to improve their general health.

This is the 6th year that we have reported on our health and safety performance. The legacy companies (Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham) individually published EHS reports for a number of years prior to the formation of GSK in 2000. Copies of these reports are available on the Corporate Register website.

Scope of data
The health and safety data covers the calendar year 2005. It is collected from all of our 81 pharmaceutical and consumer manufacturing sites, seven of eight biologicals manufacturing sites, and all 20 pharmaceutical and consumer research and development sites, as well as all seven distribution centres, all eight major office locations and 56 of approximately 65 smaller offices and sales locations. We include available data for sites that were in operation for all or part of the year. Notes attached to the charts explain the scope and data collection process for each parameter in more detail. We also include data (in the injuries and illness page) for a number of suppliers who provided information.

Verification
The environment, health and safety sections of this report are externally verified by ERM (Environmental Resources Management). Web pages to which the verification applies are indicated by this symbol See ERM’s verification statement.

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