by HRHQ Editorial Team
The Health and Social Care Advisory Committee (HSCAC), an advisory committee to the Board of the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), has published its 2025 – 2027 Action Plan, a landmark initiative to enhance occupational health and safety standards across Ireland’s largest employment sector.
The HSCAC has identified five key goals to support the HSA’s work:
- Enhance information and intelligence to inform interventions.
- Promote a positive health and safety culture in the workplace.
- Promote and support safety representatives and safety consultation in health and social care workplaces.
- Undertake initiatives to reduce the risk of injury to employees from work-related violence and aggression.
- Enable employers and employees to implement best practice in managing the risk of work-related psychosocial hazards, in particular work-related stress and work-related bullying.
The Health and Social Care sector is the largest employer in Ireland and in 2024 accounted for 13.7% of all employed persons. Formed in late 2023, the HSCAC acts as a platform for key stakeholders to advise and support the HSA in promoting best practice in occupational health and safety in the sector.
Due to the nature of their work, health and social care workers can face a variety of potentially hazardous activities. In fact, the sector reports the highest number of non-fatal work-related incidents to the HSA with falls, manual handling, and work-related violence and aggression the leading incident triggers.
The Health and Safety Authority has a wide range of online tools, courses and supports for the health and social care sector, including hsalearning.ie and their free online safety management tool BeSMART.ie. A range of publications geared to the needs of the health and social care sector are available here.
View the The Health and Social Care Action Plan 2025–2027 here
