Health & Safety Management Review & Planning for 2026

As I sit down to write this last blog of 2025, I find It’s always a good time to review and plan. In both the workplace and your personal life, it’s important to review what went well, what didn’t go so well and to plan for how to improve.

In our personal lives lots of us make New Year's resolutions based on self-improvement, although if yours is Gym Membership for 2026, beware that the statistics show that many commit to membership for 3-6 months and have often given up long before their membership is due for renewal!

Health & Safety Management Standards

If you think that planning for improvements in organisations sounds familiar, you are right as it’s one of the cornerstones of all ISO standards including ISO 45001 the International Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems Standard where you will find the term Management Review.

The ISO standards, while a good template for successful health and safety management, can be overly complex or expensive for small or low risk organisations, which is why The Health & Safety Executive published their own guidance in 1991 HSG 65 ‘Managing for Health & Safety’ (updated 2013). While HSG65 is guidance and not mandatory, it could be used by enforcement bodies as a benchmark for good practice in UK prosecutions.

This HSE guidance follows the Plan, Do Check Act approach where the review element should lead organisations back to the planning cycle with the aim of continual improvement.

Arinite factsheet 0225 Health & Safety Managementgives a good comparison showing how the ISO standard and the HSE Guidance are very similar for those wanting to improve their management systems and seeking some basic guidance to help make a start. Undertaking a ‘baseline’ audit is always a good way to start, which is something that Arinite consultants can assist with.  

Management Review

For those that already have some Health & Safey Management arrangements in place, a Management Review is a formal, systematic evaluation by top management of the organisation's management system to ensure it is suitable, adequate, and effective.

The ISO standards require management reviews to be conducted at planned intervals, but they don't specify an exact frequency. The organisation determines the appropriate frequency based on:

• The nature and scale of operations
• Risk levels
• Rate of change in the organization
• Performance trends

Common practice for many organisations is to undertake management reviews quarterly or annually, with quarterly being quite common for those with rapidly changing environments or higher risks while stable, low risk organisations or those with mature systems, might review annually.

To assist with health & safety improvement planning for 2026, you can’t go wrong if you follow some of the key principles from ISO 45001 standard even if you don’t have a H&S management system in place.

Key Inputs for Review

First, aim to look back at organisation-relevant information including audit/inspection results, customer feedback and complaints, accident/incidents, procedures/process, performance metrics, improvement actions taken, changes in the organisation, opportunities for improvement, and resource adequacy.

Review Process

Make sure that senior management are involved in the management review process as they are the key decision makers.  The review should consider both risks and opportunities, effectiveness of actions taken to address both, and whether policies and objectives remain relevant given current business conditions.

Benefits

The benefits of undertaking a management review to support your improvement planning process are numerous for example:

Performance Monitoring: Reviews provide a structured opportunity to evaluate system performance through metrics, audit results, and customer feedback, identifying trends and areas needing attention before they become significant issues.

Legal Compliance: Keeps the company updated on regulations, reducing the risk of fines and penalties.

Risk Management: Reviews help identify potential risks to system performance or compliance early, allowing proactive mitigation rather than reactive crisis management.

Continuous Improvement: The review process systematically identifies opportunities for improvement, ensuring the management system evolves with changing business needs, regulatory requirements, and stakeholder expectations rather than becoming stagnant and will help with improvement planning.

Improvement Planning

Ultimately, a health and safety improvement plan isn't just about compliance it's a business strategy that protects your most valuable asset (people) while strengthening the organisation's operational and financial performance. Some of the benefits are:

• Legal Compliance and Risk Reduction
• Cost Savings
• Employee Wellbeing and Morale
• Productivity Enhancement
• Reputation and Talent Attraction
• Continuous Improvement Culture
• Reduced Absenteeism

Think about where the organisation is now and where it needs to be; legal compliance is a good starting place. Say who will be responsible for what and how it’s going to be achieved, then decide how you are going to measure the progress. Don’t just focus on reactive or lagging indicators i.e. accidents or things that go wrong but also focus on active and leading indicators such as training, inspections or risk assessments.

Summary

You don’t need ISO accreditation or to be following HSG 65 to put in place a H&S improvement plan, but you do need the input and support of senior management to ensure it’s aligned with the organisation’s health & safety policy and to ensure successful implementation.

So why not start the new year off in your organisation by developing a health and safety improvement plan but don’t let it fall by the wayside like so many of those gym memberships?

Contact us

Arinite clients worldwide appreciate we provide practical, no-nonsense advice about what you need to do to establish and maintain a safe and healthy working environment.

Our team of Global locally based health and safety consultants take pride in keeping health and safety simple.

If you need to call upon our expert assistance, or just for an informal chat, please call our office +44 207 947 9581, or type an enquiry to: https://www.arinite.com/contact-us/.

Derek McStea