Connect Issue 7
1 September 2008
Welcome to the latest issue of Connect
Hello and welcome to the latest issue of Connect.
Nearly two-thirds of UK workers see health and safety as a
necessity, rather than bureaucratic red tape. Seven out of 10 don’t
feel that safety regulations stop them from doing their job.
These findings, from a recent YouGov
survey commissioned by IOSH, show that the tired image of
health and safety professionals as the ‘ban it brigade’ isn’t
shared by the majority of working people.
IOSH wanted to know if people agree with the media’s negative
stereotype of the profession, and whether people really value
health and safety. The survey demonstrates that the media’s
portrayal of health and safety doesn’t necessarily reflect public
attitudes. We’ll continue to send out a positive image of the
profession – not only to the media, but to the wider public
too.
In this month’s Spotlight, Zoe Hands from Heathrow
Airport talks about how a million consecutive hours without a
reportable accident was achieved during the building of Terminal 5,
and the huge impact security measures had on the airport after the
failed attempted bombing two years ago.
The rise in the popularity of extreme sports is seen by many as
a release from the humdrum of modern living – a sentiment echoed by
off-road enthusiast and IOSH member Lisa Sculthorpe who features in
our latest Seriously Fun. As well as describing
what it’s like to be inside a Land Rover floating in a boggy marsh,
Lisa also provides a YouTube video of
her recent escapades to keep us entertained.
Melissa Ashwell, from Imdaad LLC in Dubai, is the latest to take
the 60 second
interview challenge – she says the lack of qualified safety
professionals is a hot issue in her region right now.
On top of features, we’ve also got the latest news, including
the last of this year’s committee vacancies at IOSH. Remember,
Connect contains all your branch and group events in
MyNetwork, as well as linking to the full events
calendar on the website.
I hope you enjoy reading this issue of Connect. If you
have any comments, or want to be featured in one of our articles,
please drop me a line.
Shaun Gibbons
e-Editor
Spotlight: staying grounded
Zoe Hands is 26 and part of the new generation of health and
safety professionals. At such a young age she has already dealt
with security threats, pop stars and a multi-billion pound project
working as a Health and Safety Manager for British Airports
Authority Heathrow. As the summer holiday season starts to wind
down, Connect talks to her about this
exciting and challenging role…
Less than two years after finishing university, Zoe started
working for BAA Heathrow, Europe’s biggest airport. She initially
took on the role of logistics safety, but was then handed the
responsibility of looking after all the terminals – including the
brand new Terminal 5, which alone is the same size as Gatwick
Airport. Along with all five terminals, she covers the property and
retail portfolios, Heathrow’s express train service and the Track
Transit System which is an underground, un-manned train service
that runs between T5A and T5B. Zoe works alongside three colleagues
and reports to the Director of Health and Safety.
“This may sound clichéd but a typical day at
Heathrow just doesn’t exist. I mainly get involved in project
meetings or trouble-shooting. I never know what could be coming my
way next.”
Zoe tackles a range of issues, from a sudden outburst of insect
bites in one of the terminals, to crisis planning for protest
action against the airport.
Since T5 opened, it has already taken up a large amount of Zoe’s
time.
“Because it’s new and so big there are always
things going on, or something comes up that I need to oversee. But
this can make it hard when there are four other terminals to look
after.”
During the construction phase of T5, BAA operated a behavioural
safety programme called the Incident and Injury Free campaign. The
workforce achieved a million consecutive hours without a reportable
accident on 15 separate occasions, and two million consecutive
hours on three occasions. This is all the more significant given
that there were over 8,000 workers on the site.
Aside from T5, there are plenty of other things to keep Zoe
busy, including crowd control. When Virgin Atlantic opened a new
check-in area in Terminal 3, Zoe and her team had to calculate how
many people could safely stand in an area around a stage holding
pop band the Spice Girls.
“Even for a small, exclusive concert we had
to work out how many people we could get in per square metre – and
that was excluding people sneaking their way in. We therefore have
to walk every possible journey people could take.”
Working with third parties can be a real challenge for BAA. The
number of directly employed BAA staff at Heathrow is just under
5,000 but the total working at the airport is closer to 70,000.
“Trying to get so many companies working
together, when they each have their own agenda, is by far the
biggest challenge as everyone has to communicate properly. It’s
like a construction site ten-fold. There are contractors here,
there and everywhere that each have their own systems and
processes.”
Slips, trips and falls are the most common accidents passengers
suffer – often as a result of tripping over luggage or a trolley.
For staff, manual handling injuries dominate – for example,
security teams typically have problems with repeated baggage or
body searching.
In August 2006, following the failed attempted bombing of
several passenger airplanes out of Heathrow, the Department for
Transport added to security measures for liquids, mobile phones and
keys. This had a major impact.
“People were emptying their bags everywhere –
it turned into a huge process but it was by far the best experience
I have had,” says Zoe. “It was fantastically challenging and great
to see everyone pull together. The whole team were out in high
visibility jackets with disposal bags, receiving instructions
literally a few minutes before we had to turn around and deliver
them to passengers who were in queues that stretched for
miles.”
Zoe says that her job is like having several rolled into
one.
“There are so many different things going on,
and so many different scenarios can come up. Even though I’m still
young and don’t have lots of experience at different companies I
still think it would be hard to find something that tops the
breadth of things I cover here.”
Factfile:
- Heathrow Airport covers 1,227 hectares
- 90 airlines operate from the airport
- The original ‘London Airport’, now Heathrow, was officially
opened in 1946
- Over 67 million passengers travel through the airport every
year
Links:
Seriously fun: slinging mud about
Health and safety professionals don’t like risks? We think not.
In Connect, we’re running Seriously Fun, Dangerously Safe, to
profile the extreme sports and high risk jobs our members are
involved in.
It’s easy to see why some people are attracted to dangerous
sports. The rush of adrenaline and the euphoria involved in taking
risks is seen as a release from the humdrum of modern life. IOSH
member Lisa Sculthorpe talks to Connect about her passion for
off-roading…
For many, a drive in the countryside means the chance to relax
and unwind, to admire the scenery and to maybe find a nice quiet
pub for Sunday lunch. For Lisa, however, a drive in the countryside
means tackling steep hills at full-throttle and ploughing through
rivers in her modified Land Rover.
And she’s not alone. There are thousands of off-road enthusiasts
in the UK, all with a passion for pushing themselves and their
vehicles to the limit. So what attracted a mild-mannered health and
safety officer working for Loughborough College to this macho world
of V8 engines and roll cages?
“My partner Bob got me involved in
off-roading about two years ago,” explained Lisa. “We both had a
couple of old Land Rovers, so one afternoon we decided to go for a
play in them.”
At first, Lisa and Bob stuck to disused forest tracks, a
practice known as ‘green laning’.
“We used to use old byways to start with
which are marked red, meaning that vehicles are allowed on them. It
was good fun. Basically, you don’t need to modify a 4x4 if you’re
just green laning – anyone can do it.”
It wasn’t long before Lisa, along with a few others, set up an
off-road club that meets each month.
“We tend to be a bit more daring nowadays
than just green laning,” she said, “which means taking along ropes
to pull vehicles out of sticky situations!”
Lisa has modified her Land Rover with a kit that lifts the
chassis off the ground more and she’s also spent quite a bit of
money on tyres.
“That said,” explained Lisa, “what a lot of
people love about off-roading is doing their own modifications,
which is cheaper. When things break, a lot of people do a bit of
DIY and they’re back out again. In fact, you can buy any old
vehicle that doesn’t have an MOT, as many people do. As long as
you’re only using it on private land, that is!”
Now that Lisa and her club are more adventurous in what they do,
she’s circumspect about the risks involved in some of the more
dangerous aspects of off-roading, for example mud bogging and
rock crawling.
“We don’t put ourselves in any position that
could be perceived as overly dangerous – we’re very sensible. For
example, we don’t just speed up hills without checking what’s on
the other side.”
One of the scariest things for Lisa is when they’re ploughing
through water.
“It’s a bit worrying when water starts to
come into the vehicle! You don’t think that a Land Rover will
float, but it does. So when you’ve got all four tyres off the
ground and you’re just floating, that’s when your heart really
starts to pound.”
Despite the obvious dangers, Lisa is quick to point out that
most injuries are caused not from driving the vehicles, but from
maintaining them.
“In the time I’ve been off-roading, the only
injuries I’ve seen are from spanners, screwdrivers, hammers, that
sort of thing. I always carry a first-aid kit with me, so most of
the time a plaster over a sore thumb will do!”
“One of the cardinal rules in off-roading is
never go out alone, and people who do are a bit silly. As with
everything it’s about managing the risk. What we do is about having
fun.”
Extreme sports have seen a surge in popularity over the past
decade, something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Lisa.
“I think more people are doing extreme or
dangerous sports now as a release from modern life. Risk is being
taken away from life, so people feel the need to experience some
form of risk in their hobbies.”
One person who isn’t a stranger to risk is Top Gear’s presenter
Richard Hammond. Lisa wrote into the BBC to throw the gauntlet down
to The Hamster in an off-road challenge.
“Apparently, Richard Hammond is a bit of an
off-roader, so we wanted to challenge him. Top Gear is always
having a pop at health and safety so we wanted to see if he’d come
down and drive with us one time.”
Lisa’s still waiting for a reply.
Away from muddy hilltops and the screech of engines, Lisa’s
day-to-day role at Loughborough College involves planning field
trips as well as workplace visits for when students are put on work
placement. And the biggest health and safety concern at the
college?
“I suppose it’s like anywhere else… slips and
trips are the main issues we have at the moment. We try not to wrap
our students up in cotton wool though. When we plan field trips, we
believe that anything is possible, and we always try and look at
solving problems in a pragmatic and sensible way. And that’s what
it’s all about, solving problems in a sensible way whether it’s
off-roading or at college.”
Factfile:
- Lisa, a Graduate Member of IOSH, has been the health and safety
officer at Loughborough College for four years
- Previous roles include nursing at Leicester’s Glenfield
Hospital
- Lisa has her NEBOSH certificate as well as an NVQ Level 4
Links:
60 second interview
Melissa Ashwell, Group EHS and Quality Manager for Imdaad LLC
in Dubai, talks to Connect.
What's the hot issue in your sector right
now?
Fire prevention control measures and the lack of qualified
safety professionals in the region.
What's the most challenging problem you've had to
overcome?
The United Arab Emirates has 170 different nationalities, and as
many languages. The biggest challenge is to make sure that all
staff receive and understand health and safety training. We've
developed non-language courses using the Napo cartoons and picture
cards.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever had about
working in health and safety?
Keep it simple. Keep it practical. Keep it interesting. This
will motivate staff to embrace the company safety culture.
What advice would you give to someone starting their
career in health and safety?
Knowledge and qualifications are essential, but so is practical
on-the-job experience. Remember, nobody knows everything, so ask
for assistance and advice from other professionals.
If you could ban the use of one piece of jargon, what
would it be?
I've banned all jargon. We've a multi-cultural staff and jargon
just confuses everybody. We aim for plain English at all times.
If you weren't a health and safety practitioner what
would you be?
If I had to choose another profession it would be teaching - I
enjoy sharing knowledge and watching individuals grow.
What's the biggest health and safety story in Dubai at
the moment?
Fire safety and general construction safety are currently making
newspaper headlines. There have been a number of large building
fires on construction sites, warehouses and staff
accommodation.
Do you want to be considered for a 60 Second Interview?
Contact the e-Editor.
Quote me
IOSH gets its message across...
BBC Radio 4 You and Yours programme
Policy and Technical Director Richard Jones was interviewed
about the problems caused by over-zealous and poorly qualified
health and safety advisors.
“One of the aspects of the Management
Regulations is that employers need access to competent health and
safety assistance to help them deal with their responsibilities. If
a competent health and safety practitioner is involved in this they
will steer managers away from dealing with the trivial stuff and
concentrate on the more significant hazards that have a real
potential to cause injury and illness to people.
“Most of these over the top decisions that we
see tend to be focused where the public are involved, or children,
so it’s through local authorities, hospitals or schools. We think
these decisions are taken by managers who’ve not had appropriate
advice. They’re frankly scared of being sued if things go
wrong.”
Richard stressed that better training is the key to solving this
problem – starting in schools.
“I think that the solution is education, at
all levels within the workforce, but even before then. We’re
looking to embed health and safety into the education system and
the government has supported our aim in this. And we’ve actually
put our money where our mouth is recently - we’ve created a
training package called the Workplace Hazard Awareness Course. It’s
aimed at year 10 pupils and is now freely available for all schools
to use and can lead to a qualification.”
Education Business
IOSH explained how teachers can learn to stop worrying and love
risk assessment in the latest issue of Education Business.
“Risk assessment is supposed to be a tool to
help you make things happen safely, but it’s often used incorrectly
and over-cautiously to stop anything and everything from taking
place. In the education sector, and especially where young children
are involved, it’s easy to get caught up in what could go wrong and
forget about the likelihood that it will.”
Human Resources
IOSH Trustee Ian Waldram spoke to Human Resources magazine about a
new free IOSH guide, ‘Learning the lessons: how to respond to
deaths at work and other serious incidents’.
“This is an area that, thankfully, most
in-house health and safety practitioners don’t have to deal with
often, if ever. But we think it’s good to have some pre-planned
investigation arrangements in case the worst happens and someone is
killed or seriously hurt at work.”
Leicester Mercury
Chief Executive Rob Strange responded to a story in Leicester’s
local paper about a ‘health and safety ban’ on a man taking
recyclable items to Barwell tip in a wheelbarrow.
“I’d urge the council to keep searching for
cost-effective ways to provide safe pedestrian access to their
site, because it is something of a sad irony for a recycling site
to be encouraging people to pollute to get to it!
“We’re here to find sensible solutions to
serious problems so as to allow everyone to do what they want, but
safely.”