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How we manage health and safety

We manage health and safety through an integrated environment, health and safety (EHS) management system. The system incorporates our EHS and Employee Health Policies, EHS Vision and 64 Global EHS Standards. Our EHS Plan for Excellence sets out our strategy for improving EHS performance up to 2010 and is currently being renewed to extend to 2015. See more on our EHS Management System.

Our Corporate Environment, Health and Safety (CEHS) and Employee Health Management (EHM) teams help coordinate our health and safety programmes. See more on our EHS Management Organisation.

In these pages we summarise activities during 2005 that relate specifically to health and safety. See the EHS Management section of our Corporate Responsibility Report for information on how we manage environmental and broader EHS issues.

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Training and awareness
EHS training is targeted to match employee responsibilities. Employees with responsibility for H&S issues receive regular training about initiatives in areas such as ergonomics, chemical exposures and driver safety. This is handled through regional meetings of H&S staff. They in turn train employees in manufacturing, research, sales and other divisions. CEHS and EHM arrange annual meetings to determine training issues and provide training materials.

We also want employees to be aware of health and safety in their personal lives. Employee bulletins, announcements on the myEHS website, the CEO's EHS Excellence awards programme and Health and Safety Week activities aim to raise employee awareness of issues such as wearing seat belts, being careful with electricity and using ladders appropriately.

We conduct a Health and Safety Week every October (to coincide with the European Health and Safety week and Fire Safety Awareness Month in the United States). Information kits are sent to all sites to help them develop ideas and plan activities.

In 2005, over 17,500 employees from 70 sites in 32 countries took part in the Health and Safety Week. Activities included sports days, safe driving education, ergonomics training, awareness-raising on noise and safeguarding hearing, healthy eating and lifestyles, and family participation events.

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Health and safety feedback from our EHS audits
We aim to conduct EHS audits at each operational site at least once every four years. We carry out more frequent visits at selected sites, depending on an assessment of risk and the issues raised by previous audits.

At the end of 2005 we assessed the performance of all facilities (except small commercial sites) using self-assessment and internal audit. (We audited 33 sites). The average score was 77%, but three sites achieving a score below 50%, which we regard as unacceptable. While the average score exceeds our target of 75% we will aim to correct unacceptable performance and continue to pursue further improvements to achieve best practice.

Our audits identified several priority areas:

• Chemical exposure risks
• Chemical risk assessment and control
• Managing resilience and mental well-being
• Ergonomic risk assessment and control
• Scope and adequacy of workplace risk assessments
• Self-auditing of health and safety programmes
• Management systems implementation

We aim to drive improvements in poorly-performing areas through actively tracking audit findings and identifying improvements with follow-up audits. For sites scoring less than 50%, we also provide increased support from the audit team, including follow-up visits to ensure progress, and discussions with senior business management about increased site resources. Many sites require several years to put adequate systems and programmes in place in these areas.

We also introduced or continued specific work in the following areas in 2005 to achieve improvements:

• Chemical Agents - targets set within manufacturing for promoting more accurate exposure determinations and ensuring adequacy of respiratory protective equipment at unit operations; discussions and presentations during Network Meetings
• Resilience - rollout of the tool for assessing team resilience, training during EHS Network Meetings
• Ergonomics - training in ergonomic risk assessment during Network Meetings as well as regional training
• Risk assessment - the Guideline was revised and aligned with the risk assessment requirement in the Quality group
• Self audit - training and workshop on self-auditing conducted at EHS Network Meetings
• Management System elements - rollout of the Management System Toolkit as described below

All sites are required to develop plans to address any weaknesses and potential improvements identified in the audit. Auditors monitor sites’ progress in implementing the plans. Auditors are trained and their findings compared to ensure consistency. In 2005 we continued to refine the EHS audit process and scoring system based on experience and feedback. We have also installed EHS auditing software on our intranet to help sites and auditors track progress.

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OHSAS 18001 certification
In 2005, two additional sites achieved certification to the international health and safety standard OHSAS 18001. This brings the total number of manufacturing sites certified to 16 out of 89 pharmaceutical, consumer and vaccine manufacturing sites, with one additional site that certified only the utilities area. The certified sites are in China, Egypt, France, India, Kenya, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UK. See audits and certification for information on certification to the environmental management standard ISO14001.

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Excellence awards
The Chief Executive Officer’s Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) Excellence Awards recognise and reward innovation by GSK sites. These were the winning entries in the EHS Initiative health & safety category in 2005:

First Place: Barnard Castle, UK for “Proven Capability for the ‘Shirt Sleeve’ Working Environment”

The site has moved toward controlling operator exposure to highly potent compounds by using containment for routine tasks, rather than using respiratory or protective equipment to guard against exposure. EHS considerations are integrated into the site’s business model for introducing new products, which has allowed containment to be integrated into the design for manufacture.

Second Place: Wavre, Belgium for “SOBANE” an Innovative Approach to Safety”

Third Place: Cork, Ireland for “Bulk Solvent Metering in a Research and Development Pilot Plant”

The introduction of bulk solvent metering at the Cork pilot plant has eliminated the need for handling of 2,018 drums of solvent per year. This has reduced the risk of solvent being spilled as well as reducing cleaning and disposal requirements for waste drums and pallets. No musculoskeletal injuries were reported nor were there any incidents involving chemical burns or solvent splashes from the time the metering system was introduced until the award was given.

See CEO’s EHS Excellence Award for more about the awards programme and winners from previous years.