Accredited health and safety training courses follow a syllabus that has been approved by an awarding body. For many, there is also at least one exam or assessment which is taken under exam conditions. Only those training providers that have been pre-approved by the awarding body are authorised to provide their respective qualifications. All of this adds up to mean that accredited safety qualifications not only teach a lot of valuable information to delegates, but that those who successfully pass the assessments and the course will receive a highly-respected qualification.
From an individual's perspective, holding an accredited qualification will make that person a lot more attractive to future employers. In all likelihood, an accredited qualification like a NEBOSH General Certificate will be a pre-requisite anyway for a lot of health and safety jobs, and employers would not even consider applicants who did not already have this qualification.
From a manager's perspective - or, more specifically, the person paying for the training – putting an employee on an accredited course with a provider who has to follow and maintain the standards demanded by the awarding body will provide peace of mind with regards to the quality of the training. Training companies offering these qualifications not only have to go through a vigorous process to become accredited in the first place, but they have to pass regular inspections by the awarding body to ensure that the teaching and assessment facilitation is up to the required standard in order to keep their accreditation.
We can design a programme around your exact requirements. Contact us to find out more!
The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (or NEBOSH for short) was formed in 1979 and became the first health and safety awarding body to be accredited by the UK regulatory authorities in October 2000.
The Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) pride theselves on being the leading body for health and safety professionals, with over 38,000 individual members. As an independent and not-for-profit organisation, they aim to regulate and steer the profession, maintaining standards and providing impartial, authoritative guidance on health and safety issues.
CITB (also known as ConstructionSkills or CSkills) courses are designed to give firms in the construction industry the skills and knowledge that are necessary in order to survive and prosper in today's challenging economic environment, resulting in a safe, professional and fully-qualified UK construction industry.
CITB Courses
We can design a bespoke health and safety training programme around your exact requirements. Contact us to find out more!
A big part of the reason as to why accredited health and safety qualifications are so respected is because of the very fact talked about above; i.e. the inspections and ensuring that providers are doing everything correctly. However, this also has the drawback of making the course syllabus inflexible.
Candidates all over the country need to be learning the same things, so that they can pass the examinations afterwards that are written by the awarding body. Uniformity of syllabus and standards also needs to be kept in place so that each achievement of the qualification is "worth" just as much as another (e.g. some people didn't get an easy pass thanks to easy questions).
This means that the syllabus of an accredited health and safety course cannot be tailored to your specific industry, processes and working practices. Although all of the content taught on an accredited course can be invaluable at any time, it has to be remembered that the information can be quite generalised, as it needs to accommodate course attendees who will have responsibilities and working environments that are quite different from each other. Even if it may be critical in, say, a year or two's time, if a person does not feel that what they are being taught is relevant for them and their job role at present, they may switch off and feel like large parts of the course are not providing much benefit to them.
Quite often, the best value for money health and safety courses are those which are tailored and bespoke for the company requesting it. By taking the time to find out what the exact risks are that the employees face, and developing the programme to really deal with these specific issues, it means that all of the information taught during the course will be 100% relevant and useful to all of those attending. For those paying for the training, it means that every minute of the session(s) has provided worthwhile and useful knowledge.
Those completing a bespoke safety course will often be issued with a certificate of attendance afterwards. Of course, this will not have the same level of prestige as an accredited qualification, but if it is provided by a training provider that is accredited by those awarding bodies to provide their accredited courses, then it is probably safe to assume that the teaching standards will be high, just as they would be if they were providing an accredited course for you.
Another downside of health and safety courses that are accredited by an awarding body is that quite often they are more expensive, due to the assessment requirements and fees charged to the provider by that awarding body. Of course, it all depends, as a really in-depth and bespoke safety training programme run over many days will realistically cost more than, say, a 1-day IOSH Working Safely course, but all things being equal, expect to pay more for an accredited course, unless there is a lot of research and designing that needs to be done in preparation for a non-accredited course.
The majority of accredited health and safety courses will expect you to either attend a classroom training element at a physical location or, if you are going down the distance learning or online training route, to put in many hours of self-study. These courses will require you to study hard, learn a tremendous amount of information, and attempt to recall it during one or more examinations (like you took when you were at school!)
There is, however, an alternative, in the form of a health and safety NVQ qualification. Instead of learning information and putting it down on an exam paper, these safety qualifications rely upon the collection of evidence as you go about your normal job role, which is then submitted and assessed. It is only suitable, therefore, for those already in a position where they are responsible for health and safety in a workplace, but this vocational qualification allows you to achieve a qualification without the need for studying and exams.
The answer to this question will depend really not so much on budget (although that will inevitably play a part in most training decisions), but rather: what do you need it for and what are you looking to get out of it?
If you are an individual looking at jobs, and they all have in the requirements that they need someone who holds a NEBOSH General Certificate, then you will have little choice than to just enrol on a NEBOSH General Certificate course and achieve it! If, however, you are a manager or director and your primary objective is to ensure that your employees are fully aware of the risks that are present on your unique site, and how to prevent them causing an accident that puts themselves or others in the local area at risk, then arranging a non-accredited course provided by a reputable training provider is likely to be more suitable and provide better value for money.
This article lists and summarises the most popular accredited health and safety courses that we offer including the NEBOSH General Certificate and the IOSH Managing Safely course.
At over 10,000 words in length, this comprehensive article looks at a number of different factors that create dangers and hazards on a construction site. These include issues such as arson, falling from height, hazardous substances and moving vehicles on site to name just a few.
People are not only the biggest cause of workplace accidents, but also the force that can prevent most of the accidents from occuring. Workplace health and safety is therefore dependent on the actions and attitudes of its people.
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