Prevention and protection actions

A prevention and protection action is a safety obligation that 4HSE tracks over time: a course to deliver, a medical examination to schedule, equipment to maintain, PPE to hand out, a procedure to review.

All actions work the same way, whatever the obligation. This area describes that common mechanism and holds the procedures that apply to every type. Each type then has its own area, which explains what is specific to it.

The five types

Type	What it tracks
Training	courses workers must attend and their renewals
Health surveillance	medical examinations prescribed to workers
Maintenance	scheduled servicing of equipment and environments
Personal protection	PPE assigned to workers and its delivery
Procedures	company procedures that need periodic review

Two levels: the action and the session

Every type is organised on two levels, and the distinction governs everything else.

• The action defines the need: this course exists, these workers must attend it, it is valid for three years.
• The session is a single execution of that need on a date: this edition of the course, held on 12 March, with these people enrolled.

Each type names these two levels differently — a training action is a Course and its session an Edition, a maintenance action is a Plan and its session an Order. The full correspondence is in Terminology by action type.

The cycle

The same sequence applies to all five types:

1. Define the action and its validity
2. Add the recipients — the people, or the equipment, subject to it
3. Link the resources that make it necessary, so the obligation is traceable to a risk
4. Schedule a session on a date
5. Enrol the recipients in that session
6. Record the outcome once it has taken place
7. Issue a certificate, which is the proof of compliance and sets the next expiry

Not every step is mandatory. An obligation already fulfilled in the past can be recorded directly as a certificate, without scheduling anything: see Register past compliance.

Where compliance becomes visible

The certificate carries an expiry date. From that date 4HSE derives the status of the recipient — valid, expiring, expired — and feeds the scheduler and the notifications. This is why issuing the certificate matters: until it exists, the obligation is open.