Prevention is a part of the occupational accident response plan

Prevention as part of an accident incident response plan is an indispensable aspect of protecting occupational health and safety. Establishing effective prevention measures is part of an organization’s plan to respond to occupational accident incidents. By understanding more about prevention measures and how they work, we can enhance safety levels and minimize risks in the work environment.

I. Common causes of occupational accidents and why prevention plays a decisive role in the occupational accident incident response plan?

In Vietnam, occupational accidents are still a pressing issue, causing much damage to people and property. According to statistics from the Ministry of Labor – Invalids and Social Affairs, in 2022, there were 6,312 occupational accidents nationwide, killing 557 people and injuring 6,255 people.

There are many causes of occupational accidents, among which the following common causes can be mentioned:

• Due to unsafe equipment, machinery, and materials: This is the leading cause of occupational accidents. Unsafe equipment, machinery, and materials can cause incidents such as fires, explosions, falls, collapses, impacts,… leading to injury or death for workers.
• Due to lack of personal protective equipment: Workers not being fully equipped with personal protective equipment, or not using personal protective equipment correctly can lead to occupational accidents.
• Due to lack of awareness in complying with occupational safety regulations: Workers’ lack of awareness in complying with occupational safety regulations, such as not following work procedures, not using personal protective equipment,… is also one of the causes leading to occupational accidents.

Occupational accident prevention plays a decisive role in the occupational accident incident response plan. Preventing occupational accidents will help minimize the number of accidents that occur, thereby minimizing damage to people and property.

A good occupational accident incident response plan must be built on the foundation of occupational accident prevention work. When an occupational accident incident occurs, the response plan will help units and businesses quickly handle the incident, minimizing damage.

To prevent occupational accidents, units and businesses need to implement the following solutions:

• Regularly inspect and maintain equipment, machinery, and materials to ensure safety.
• Fully equip workers with personal protective equipment and instruct them on how to use it correctly.
• Propagate and disseminate knowledge about occupational safety to workers.

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II. Prevention helps identify and confront risks through the process of an occupational accident incident occurring

To prevent occupational accidents and ensure safety in the work environment, the prevention process begins with detailing and effectively confronting potential risks.

Identifying Risks:

1. Identify Hazardous Factors: First, it is necessary to identify hazardous factors that can harm workers, including natural, human, and equipment/machinery factors.
2. Assess Severity Level: Next, the risk assessment process tasks the analysis of the severity level of hazardous factors to clearly understand the danger they can create.
3. Determine Likelihood of Occurrence: Assessment also involves determining the likelihood of hazardous factors occurring, focusing on evaluating their probability of occurrence.
4. Develop Preventive Measures: Finally, based on the assessment results, preventive measures must be developed to minimize risks to the fullest extent.

Confronting Risks:

After identifying risks, confrontation measures need to be implemented effectively:

1. Eliminate Hazardous Factors: If possible, completely eliminating hazardous factors is the most effective measure.
2. Minimize Severity Level: If elimination is not feasible, it is necessary to minimize the severity level of the hazardous factor through technical or work organization measures.
3. Reduce Likelihood of Occurrence: At the same time, measures must be applied to reduce the likelihood of hazardous factors occurring, such as improving work processes or using safety equipment.

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III. Building a tight and comprehensive occupational accident prevention plan

To build a detailed and effective occupational accident prevention plan, there are specific steps and principles that businesses need to follow:

Step 1: Risk assessment:

Conduct a risk assessment by identifying and evaluating hazardous factors that may appear in the work environment.

Prioritize determining the severity and probability of occurrence for each risk.

Step 2: Develop preventive measures:

Based on the risk assessment, build a plan with specific and reasonable preventive measures.

Clearly specify how to improve working conditions, eliminate or minimize hazardous factors.

Step 3: Organize plan implementation:

Assign individuals responsible for implementing the plan and monitoring execution.

Schedule periodic inspections to ensure that preventive measures are working correctly.

Step 4: Propaganda and education:

Organize regular training and propaganda sessions to raise safety awareness and skills for all employees.

Use effective media channels to share the safety message.

Some notes when building an occupational accident prevention plan

The plan needs to be built in accordance with the business’s production and operational characteristics.

The plan needs to be built based on a realistic and accurate risk assessment.

The plan needs to be implemented seriously and effectively.

Building and implementing an occupational accident prevention plan is the responsibility of all levels, sectors, businesses, and workers.

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IV. Leadership’s role in promoting a safety culture and preventing occupational accident incidents

Leadership plays an important role in promoting a safety culture and preventing occupational accident incidents. They are the ones who have a great influence on the awareness and behavior of workers, creating a safe and healthy work environment.

First, leadership needs to show a strong commitment to occupational safety. They need to consider occupational safety as one of the core values of the business, a responsibility of everyone. Leadership needs to regularly remind and propagate the importance of occupational safety, encouraging workers to implement safety measures.

Second, leadership needs to build and issue strict occupational safety regulations and procedures suitable for the business’s specific operations. These regulations and procedures need to be widely disseminated to all workers and strictly implemented.

Third, leadership needs to invest resources in occupational safety work. This includes equipping personal protective equipment, improving working conditions, and providing occupational safety training for workers.

Fourth, leadership needs to regularly monitor and inspect occupational safety work. This helps to detect and promptly correct risks, minimizing occupational accident incidents.

Leadership has an important role in promoting a safety culture and preventing occupational accident incidents. Performing the above tasks well will contribute to creating a safe, healthy working environment, protecting the health and lives of workers.

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V. Technology and warning systems that occupational accident prevention can use to optimize safety

In recent years, technology has been increasingly applied in the field of occupational accident prevention. Modern technologies and warning systems can help businesses detect and prevent accident risks, contributing to optimizing occupational safety.

Some common technologies and warning systems that can be used in occupational accident prevention include:

• Video surveillance systems: These systems use cameras to record images in hazardous work areas. The recorded images will be analyzed by software to detect dangerous signs, such as workers violating safety procedures, damaged equipment,…
• Sensor systems: These systems use sensors to detect hazardous factors, such as high temperatures, high humidity, toxic gas concentrations,… When hazardous factors are detected, the system will issue a warning so workers can handle it promptly.
• Early warning systems: These systems use algorithms to predict the likelihood of an occupational accident occurring. When the system detects a potential accident, it will issue a warning so workers can proactively prevent it.

These technologies and warning systems can be used in combination to form a comprehensive safety system. This system can help businesses detect and prevent accident risks effectively, contributing to protecting the health and lives of workers.

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VI. Training and supporting employees to ensure effective implementation of occupational accident prevention

Occupational safety and health (OSH) training is an important and necessary activity for every business, organization, and production facility. Proper and effective OSH training will help raise workers’ awareness and responsibility in preventing occupational accidents (OA), contributing to ensuring safety for workers and the business.

To train and support employees to ensure effective OA prevention, the following solutions should be implemented:

• Identify training audiences: Identifying the training audience will help businesses choose appropriate training content and methods. OSH training audiences include: all workers, managers, employers, and OSH officers.
• Determine training content: OSH training content must comply with OSH laws. Training content needs to be updated and supplemented regularly to fit the business’s actual situation.
• Develop a training program: The OSH training program needs to be specific, detailed, suitable for the training audience and safety training content.
• Recruit and develop a team of trainers: The team of OSH trainers needs to have professional qualifications, skills, and practical experience.
• Organize training: OSH training organization must meet requirements regarding time, location, and training methods.
• Test and evaluate training results: Testing and evaluating OSH training results is necessary to assess the effectiveness of the training work.

In addition to organizing training, businesses need to have measures to support employees in implementing OA prevention, including:

• Provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for workers: PPE is one of the important measures to protect workers from OA risks. Businesses need to provide adequate PPE appropriate for each job position and type of work for workers.
• Organize activities to propagate and disseminate OSH knowledge: Activities to propagate and disseminate OSH knowledge should be organized regularly, integrated with the business’s production and business activities.
• Create a safe and healthy working environment: A safe and healthy working environment will contribute to limiting OA risks. Businesses need to regularly inspect and improve the working environment, ensuring safety for workers.

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VII. Evaluate occupational accident prevention performance and continuously improve strategies to maintain a safe work environment

There are many methods for evaluating occupational accident prevention performance, among which the most common is the method of analyzing the frequency and severity of occupational accidents. This method is based on statistics of the number of occupational accidents occurring within a certain period, while also analyzing the severity of each accident.

In addition, businesses can also use other assessment methods such as:

• Root cause analysis of occupational accidents
• Employee opinion surveys on the safe work environment
• Evaluating the effectiveness of occupational safety training programs

The results of evaluating occupational accident prevention performance will be the basis for businesses to implement measures to improve their occupational safety strategy. These improvement measures should include the following factors:

• Raising worker awareness of occupational safety
• Complying with occupational safety regulations
• Improving working conditions
• Investing in safety equipment

Improving the occupational safety strategy needs to be done continuously to ensure a safe working environment for workers.

Here are some specific examples of measures to improve occupational safety strategy:

• Organizing regular occupational safety training courses for workers to help them raise awareness of occupational accident risks and how to prevent them.
• Building and implementing strict occupational safety procedures, ensuring workers comply seriously.
• Regularly inspecting and monitoring the work environment, promptly detecting and correcting potential risks that cause occupational accidents.
• Investing in purchasing modern occupational safety equipment suitable for each type of production and business.

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VIII. An Toan Nam Viet’s Occupational Safety Training Capacity

An Toan Nam Viet is a prestigious and high-quality center specializing in occupational safety training (in many different languages such as English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean….) in Vietnam today. With occupational safety training sessions held continuously at factories, plants, or construction sites across the country (63 provinces in Vietnam).

REGISTER FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY TRAINING SERVICE

Occupational safety training license

• An Toan Nam Viet has been inspected and granted a certificate of eligibility for occupational safety and health training activities by the Department of Work Safety of the Ministry of Labor – Invalids and Social Affairs. This further strengthens our capacity to conduct occupational safety training.

Documents and lectures

• Before occupational safety training materials are used in OSH training courses, they have been reviewed and censored to ensure that the lectures are always accurate in terms of knowledge and effective when applied.
• The teaching methods of the lecturers are standardized according to An Toan Nam Viet’s teaching standards, which is a method that experts in occupational safety and health training have researched and consolidated during the teaching process to bring the highest knowledge acquisition efficiency for students.

Facilities

• Controlling factors in the classroom that affect the training process will increase teaching efficiency and student knowledge acquisition.
• Our training course support facilities always provide spacious classrooms that meet standards for area, lighting, training equipment, etc.

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IX. Nationwide Workplace Environment Monitoring Center

Nam Viet’s Workplace Environment Monitoring Center is a professional unit specializing in monitoring and measuring the quality of the working environment across all provinces in Vietnam. With a team of experienced monitoring specialists, the center uses modern measuring equipment, ensuring accuracy and reliability.

REGISTER FOR WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT MONITORING SERVICE

In addition to providing monitoring services, the center also supports clients in planning, handling, and tracking workplace environment issues. With the motto “the customer is the center,” we always bring customer satisfaction, meet all customer needs, and commit to providing the best solutions for businesses.

With investment in techniques, technology, and human resources, Nam Viet’s monitoring center has become one of the reputable units in the field of workplace environment monitoring in Ho Chi Minh City with the following objectives:

• We always value our brand reputation and the quality of our products and services.
• We provide customers with the best and most suitable things possible.
• Along with a team of experienced Masters and Engineers with expertise and a desire to protect the environment and benefit businesses.
• Coming to the Nam Viet Environmental Monitoring team, your company will receive professional service from experts in the monitoring field. At the same time, you will get the best cost incentives.

The process of conducting workplace environment monitoring at Nam Viet includes the following basic steps:

• Before conducting workplace environment monitoring, our company always ensures that machinery and equipment for monitoring are calibrated and standardized according to legal regulations.
• Correctly and fully implement the workplace environment monitoring process as committed to the Department of Health.
• Truthfully report the workplace environment monitoring results to the employer.
• In cases where the monitoring results do not ensure safety for employees, Nam Viet company will support proposing remedial solutions, and the labor facility will implement the following:
  • Implement measures to improve working conditions to minimize the impact of harmful factors and prevent occupational diseases.
  • Organize health check-ups to detect occupational diseases and work-related illnesses early for employees in positions with unsafe working environments.
  • Provide in-kind benefits to employees according to labor laws.