Social Work Inspection

Social Work Inspection Agency (2005) An Inspection into the Care and Protection of Children inEileanSar. Edinburgh Scottish Executive. 

The Swedish Work Environment Authority (SWEA) and the Swedish Chemicals Inspectorate (SCI) are, thus, two enforcement authorities that work with environmental issues, though in different respects. The Swedish Work Environment Authority focuses on factors that have an impact on the mental, social and physical health and well-being of employees, while the Swedish Chemicals Inspectorate focuses on factors that influence toxic levels in nature and thereby both directly and indirectly the health and well-being of human beings as well. While SWEA s activity is dominated by inspections of workplaces in public and private organisations, inspections play only a minor role in the activities of SCI. See Table 18.1 for further differences between the authorities. 

At first glance, the pharmacist-physician duos tended to reinforce scholars prejudices against laboratory work, since apothecaries occupied a socially subaltern position where physicians organizations policed the preparation of drugs and inspected the pharmacies. Thus it comes as no surprise that the Gazette de medecine despised experimental chemists as people teasing fire for dubious purposes. 

In 1988, the DHSS was split into two departments, the Department of Health (DoH) and the Department of Social Security (DSS). Following the Evans-Cunliffe report, from April 1989, the Medicines Division of the DoH became the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) under a director, and was expected to self-fund its operation from fees commensurate with the services provided. The UK MCA in 1997 had 458 staff, of whom 150 approximately worked in licensing, 130 in post-licensing, including pharmacovigilance, 75 in licensing inspection of manufacture and enforcement, and... 

Complaints against decisions made in compliance with the working environment Act by the WEA may be brou t before a working environment appeal board. These boarck include representatives of the social partners. The inspection of enterprises is integrated into four regional Inspection Centres, each with approximately 100 employees. The inspectors of the local units of the Work Environment Service are responsible for carrying out inspection. 

Many prescriptive models of organizational design exist (e.g., Hackman 1990), but relatively few studies applied specifically to test and inspection. Early work by Jamieson (1966), Thomas and Seaborne (1961), and McKenzie (1958) established that humans change their inspection behavior, and hence performance, in predictable ways when social and oiganizational variables are changed. Inspection, McKenzie notes, is always of people. The inspector is always judging the work of others, or even his or her own work. Thus, pressures on the inspector are to be expected. More recent work (e.g., Taylor 1991) has examined the sociotechnical systems context of inspection in aviation main-... 

It is perhaps reassuring to boldly state and accept that safety culture can t be measured, and more fundamentally neither can safety itself. This relieves us of the need to develop ever more complex measures of safety, more convoluted forms and inspection sheets, more detailed policies and procedures, and the bureaucracy that often sits alongside such paper-based approaches that reflect normative concepts of safety culture that don t really work in practice. Instead, this version of safety culture enables us to better prioritise the individual and social aspects that are inherently involved. How people understand safety is important how it is developed, associated and shared by those interacting in the work environment, what they consider significant in their actions and interactions. But we must remain mindful of the fact that this is not something that can be measured either. It is people that contribute and ultimately create the changeable and complicated version of safety culture in practice found on our construction sites. 

After a prolonged effort to get the local health department to inspect the house, she was finally able to bring state inspectors in and lead paint was identified on the exterior. The only help they could offer, however, was advising her to undertake lead abatement work that was unaffordable for her. A social worker approached the local authorities on Rita s behalf, asking if there was any financial assistance available to help her pay for removing the lead paint. The response was simply, "We don t have a lead problem in this county. ... 

Issues such as reducing major disparities in the occupational doses received by workers of different types who work within the controlled area and avoiding arduous working conditions in radiation areas (social factors) should be taken into account in the design. The types of worker who could potentially receive the highest doses include maintenance and inspection personnel and health physics staff... 

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