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February 27, 2013

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IOSH 2013 – Learning the lessons from London 2012

The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics were probably the first time that the arguments in support of health and safety as an enabler, and as something that can bring businesses considerable benefits if done well, came to fruition in the way the organisation of the event was seen around the world.

This was the assessment of the man who was in charge of delivering health and safety for the Olympic Delivery Authority, Lawrence Waterman, who spoke as part of a panel session at IOSH 2013.

He said he feels immensely proud and lucky to have been involved in the construction of the stadia and athletes’ village, not least the fact that it was the first time in the history of the Olympics that no construction workers were killed in the build phase.

“No one could have said we are definitely going to do it, but we set it as a target. And, actually, a lot of fingers were crossed along the way.”

Explaining that, as the client, the ODA set out from the beginning to learn from the mistakes of other major projects, such as Terminal 5 at Heathrow and the Channel Tunnel, as well as build on their successes, he added: “People have real ambition to deliver projects with great health and safety records and workers deserve that.”

Echoing Lawrence’s comments, David Rowbotham, a director at Mace Group, said that in planning the construction of the Shard in London, the company set out its aspiration that no one should get hurt. Its approach was one of challenging systems until it was sure they were working, constant self-criticism, and engaging with the client, architect, structural engineer, contractor and workers.

By deciding to build the spire for the Shard in a yard brought several advantages for safety. Not only was the company able to check that the spire and main structure actually fitted together before trying to attempt the operation at 250 metres above the ground but it was also able to take lots of photographs while building it a ground level that could be used and referred to during the installation on site.

This engagement with the workers also fostered open discussion about the hazards they were worried about and the solutions they might be able to adopt. This was most evident in how workers were worried they might drop components and tools while working at height and the innovation of magnetic netting to catch any tools that were dropped.

Network Rail’s director of safety strategy, Allan Spence, said he judged success by the fact that the company was not in the news. He insisted that a lot of the lessons it learnt from the Olympics in terms of crowd control, flow and behaviour is and will be used by the company to make stations safer in the future. He also admitted that the company had identified some negatives during the experience in terms of managing contractors, and that it would take forward lessons on how to deal with disruption to the network.

Good leadership was emphasised several times by each speaker. Indeed, David Rowbotham explained that it had recently walked away from a client because it was not convinced about their approach to health and safety. In this case, the client had come back to Mace asking how it could re-engage with the company on health and safety, as it wanted to work with it on a particular project.

Allan Spence added that ambition and people are two things that need to be focused on. Ambition, he explained, is a much more positive term than compliance and allows companies to set its own agenda and build trust. Also, engaging people will enable companies to implement solutions that workers come up with to improve health and safety.

There was also general consensus among the panellists that the construction industry needs to’ do health like safety’. Said Rowbotham: “We don’t apply the same focus on health as we do on safety and that’s not right,” pointing out that the industry accounts for around 2500 deaths from occupational ill health and around 50 fatalities from safety-related incidents.

Lawrence Waterman said the starting point is to create a working environment that isn’t going to harm anyone; the second phase is to build in occupational-health surveillance and support services; and the ‘wrapper’ is all the well-being promotion to help spread the message to construction workers that it is important not only to be fit for work but be fit for the life you lead.

The video below highlights key lessons each of the panel learned during the Olympic build.

 

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