As Chair of SWITCH Forum, I was delighted to be able to represent SWITCH at the recent HSE Prevention Summit in London. The Summit is part of a wider three-year programme of work to target and reduce work-related ill-health.
As part of their strategy HSE have identified health as a priority area and one that they want to engage with industry sectors and stakeholders across the country.
It was a packed agenda with keynote speeches and presentations from Sir Cary Cooper CBE (an American-born Psychologist and 50th Anniversary Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester) and Dame Carol Black GBE FRCP (a British physician, academic, specialising in rheumatology. She was President of the Royal College of Physicians from 2002 to 2006, advised the British Government on the relationship between work and health from 2006 to 2016, and was Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, from 2012 to 2019), very much setting the scene sharing their knowledge and the extensive work they have carried out around work-related ill-health.
The delegates were very sensibly organised at tables with other people from their industry. Therefore, I was alongside representatives of WISH, ESA as well as Tim Small (HSE Principal Inspector of Health & Safety), who engages regularly with the resource sector and Sue Thomson also from HSE.
Most of the morning was then taken up with detailed roundtable discussions on identifying what the health priorities were within the resource industry, followed by an intense afternoon session on how to manage and reduce those health risks identified.
There was general consensus within the group that the 3 key health priorities for the industry were –
- Musculoskeletal disorders
- Respiratory illnesses (bioaerosols and airborne particle related)
- Stress and mental health (including violence and aggression towards resource industry staff
In the afternoon sessions it was widely agreed that there was a lack of data across the industry to measure health risks and what data there was, was held in different places either by individual companies or industry groups. It was agreed therefore, that the firsts steps required would be to carry share the available data and to map and scope the issues and identify gaps needing further work.
It was agreed that the initial steps would be to set up a group with representatives from WISH/ESA/SWITCH and that Chris Jones would reach out to APSE and NALDO in order that we can map out the Local Authority sector also.
It was clear that the HSE are looking for this to be industry led. However, the consensus was that HSE had to participate and lend weight to the process as this would be essential to the success of the ongoing piece of work.
HSE accepted that this would be important and that they would be supportive of this approach.
In terms of timelines, it was thought that the suggested group would gather in the first quarter of the new year to establish where we are and what needs to be done.
HSE will seek regular updates as to progress and of any actions that have been agreed.
Overall, this was a very good Summit, and it was encouraging to see such enthusiasm across the day for what is an extremely important subject matter and one that our industry is aware needs to be tackled.
Jim
Jim Brown
Chair – SWITCH Forum