Abstract
In 1995 the European Commission decided to help owners of small and medium-sized enterprises by providing a tool to aid the evaluation and decision-making in the fields of safety of health at work. When the Self-Audit Handbook for SMEs (European commission, 1995) was published, almost nobody anticipated such effectiveness of self-assessment practices.
In 1995, almost 6,000,000 workers in European Union were affected by workplace incidents and accidents or work-related ailments; as a result 6,229 of them died. In 2010, more than 3,000,000 workers were affected by workplace accidents; 4,395 of them died.
Despite the recorded decrease it is foreseeable that in future the number of occupational injuries will be considerable, in both human and economic terms, and also more questions will arise regarding the risks in process and power industry. Today, almost twenty years after the foundation of Self-Audit initiative in the European Union, we can look back at a range of audits and evaluate the experience.
This article is intended to describe the most significant experience with using the Self-Audit Handbook for SMEs in process and power industry. Designed to permit the identification and evaluation of shortcomings and accident risks, the Self-audit Handbook still should help to improve safety in small and medium-sized enterprises.
