Vision for Health, Safety and Environmental Protection in Defence
Updated 13 May 2024
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1. Our vision
To establish a world leading safety culture across Defence, eliminating fatalities whilst enhancing capability, and where the value of safety and environmental protection is recognised by everyone.
To protect the nation, we must first protect ourselves.
We all have a responsibility to adopt a highly engaged safety culture in order to prevent avoidable accidents to save life and limb and preserve our fighting power.
Across Defence, we will engrain safety, management of risk and a care for people into everything we do.
We aim to:
- eliminate fatalities whilst enhancing capability
- minimise injury through learning
- protect the environment from harm
2. How does that work in practice?
Our people are our greatest asset and we will do our utmost to protect them. We recognise the importance of protecting the natural environment and managing our resources sustainably, as core to resilient operational capability and a key aspect of health and wellbeing.
Many activities across Defence are inherently risky. Our people operate in uniquely challenging and hostile environments – on land, at sea and in the air. Despite this, there’s one vision we must all share; whether working in an office or fighting on operations. Safety is everyone’s responsibility.
Safe practices must be inherent in how we think and behave. Each one of us, no matter our role, experience or rank has a duty to prevent harm to ourselves, others and the environment.
As we train our people to operate in challenging and hostile environments, we will ensure that safety is included as a core consideration. When risks are taken, they must be identified, understood and integrated into our plans and the way we operate.
Further details of how our vision is underpinned by our safety and environmental management systems are set out in Defence’s HS&EP Functional Strategy, HS&EP Operating Model and Safety Management policy (Joint Service Publication 375).