Part VII of the German Social Code upholds the requirement for self-administration (by the insureds’ representatives and employers) and extends the scope of the prevention tasks assigned to statutory accident insurers. Consequently, they are now required to prevent work-related health hazards as well as employing all suitable means to prevent occupational accidents and diseases and ensuring effective first aid is delivered.
Guiding principles in BGs’ prevention work
- Occupational safety and health (OSH) is a commitment which must be fulfilled in and by enterprises. The BGs use all suitable means to support employers and insureds in the fulfilment of that commitment.
- Prevention policies should be designed to be effective and cost-efficient. They must adapt to the innovation processes and structural change in industry as well as to the impacts of new technologies and altered forms of work.
- The BGs primarily base their joint and industry-specific prevention activities on an assessment of working conditions in the specific case concerned and align them, in particular, with the insights they gain and lessons they learn
- in their consulting work for and inspection of enterprises,
- from patterns of accident and occupational-disease incidence,
- in their rehabilitation and compensation activities and
- from the experiences of the BGs’ board of directors.
- Small and medium-sized enterprises are extremely prevalent in German industry. The BGs develop prevention policies tailored to the needs of such companies, taking into account special features of the sectors in which they operate.
- The constant decline in the number of accidents at work is attributable, above all, to successful prevention. The BGs’ prevention activities need to be designed and enhanced in a way which tackles all of the major risks to life and health at the workplace. To this end, the BGs are increasingly using incentive systems.
- The BGs support joint institutions and cross-industry tasks in the field of prevention, e.g. prevention committees, priority activities and research.
- The BGs work with other OSH institutions, in particular, the governmental bodies and committees active in the area of prevention.
