The Otago University pleaded guilty to a private health and safety prosecution and ordered to pay $60,000 in reparations certainly brings to the fore the ability of the public to bring about a private prosecution when Worksafe NZ do not.The case was taken against the University by a visitor who broke her pelvis and back when she slipped on the tiles while visiting the university's Commerce Building in June 2013.It was identified that about 70 people have been injured on the tiles in the past 24 years and the claimant's lawyer stated that the case should be a wake-up call to many public institutions.

About 18 years ago, last century, a farmer was prosecuted to the sum of $17000, plus reparation cost to an employee who was injured while feeding out silage to cattle. The injured worker had told his employer on numerous occasions that the trailer coupling on the feeder was faulty and needed repairs. No action was taken to fix the problem.  This resulted in a serious harm accident to the employee and OSH prosecuted the farmer. During the court case the injured worker informed the court that he had told his employer at least 7-9 times about the faulty coupling.When the employer was questioned by the prosecution, he said that the employee was incorrect and he had only been told of the problem 3-4 times. This was an admittance of guilt that he had failed in his duty of care and not listened to his employees about his concerns and taken no action to repair the coupling.

They say that from little acorns grow big oaks. In both these cases from two unrelated industries these examples turned out to be time consuming, expensive and grew into something far larger than when first brought to the notice of the respective parties.Both cases illustrate,

1. 1. The need to not only manage the big health and safety issues such as accidents but also the small issues like near miss/hit incidents or even minor injuries.
2. 2. The need to have a no blame reporting processes in place to document all H&S issues or other process or service concerns.
3. 3. The need to involve and listen to employees when there is an H&S concern.
4. 4. The need for a proactive process to review and to monitor this information and to implement as required affirmative corrective action.

I once read that "In every diversion there is an equal or if not an even greater opportunity for improvement."If we applied with axiom to health and Safety and considered all incidents, other H&S events and the input from employees as an opportunity for the business to improvement its systems and processes, this would be a simple yet cost effective method to mitigate any present and future risks to a business.