IOSH Member to head up ENSHPO

An IOSH member has been selected to head up ENSHPO, one of Europe’s most important forums for sharing occupational safety and health practice across the continent.
IOSH member Bruce Phillips was elected as chair of the European Network of Safety and Health Professional Organisations (ENSHPO), during its 22nd meeting in Bucharest, Romania. As part of the role he will chair its executive committee and is joined by IOSH executive director of membership Hazel Harvey and VDSI Germany’s Ralf Gierke, who were both appointed vice-chairs.
Bruce Phillips replaces AIAS Italy’s Giancarlo Bianchi as chair and will serve on the committee for the next three years.
Speaking after the meeting on 15 and 16 March, he said: “It’s a privilege to be elected onto the ENSHPO executive committee – I take the role of chair very seriously and believe we can achieve a great deal in the next year, developing more links with organisations across Europe.
“Over the next three years we’ll be building on ENSHPO’s good work, promoting it further within countries that aren’t currently involved. It’s really important that this forum can be accessed by health and safety organisations all over Europe, to exchange information, experiences and good practice on a whole range of topics – it’s this that’ll help to improve health and safety standards in our workplaces.”
Hazel Harvey added: “To have such a strong IOSH presence on the committee is fantastic for the Institution and I think it shows how much of a key occupational safety and health stakeholder we are in Europe, both in terms of our influence in the field and the expertise and authority of our members.”
The team will also be building upon ENSHPO’s European Occupational Safety and Health Manager (EurOSHM®) – a voluntary certification standard for professionals, launched in 2008. They’ll also be working towards the introduction of an accreditation for a safety card for practitioners.
ENSHPO was born in 2001 and since then, it has been working to develop links with all professional health and safety organisations across Europe. It promotes dialogue with national and international authorities and aims to develop European-wide recognition of OSH practitioner qualifications and training.