Making a difference through health and safety
Emma Head from HS2 talks to us about improving health and safety
Emma Head Chief Railway Officer, HS2 Ltd
You’re a chartered safety professional and later this year will celebrate 25 years’ experience in rail. Why did you choose to focus on safety for your career?
I started at 18 doing a business apprenticeship, working on the West Coast Main Line Route Modernisation Project with the safety and environment team. I had good enough A levels to go to university but wasn’t clear of my direction. So, I took a business apprenticeship. I wanted practical experience of what different areas of work involved before deciding where to focus.
I thought I’d be interested in the environment and town planning. But while I was there, sadly, my father was diagnosed with the industrial cancer mesothelioma, and passed away shortly after. This meant that I had a combination of powerful experiences that transformed the way I understood safety: hard work with the health, safety, and environment team, personal lived experience, and seeing what we needed to do to improve health, safety, and wellbeing standards. These lit a passion in me to make a real difference in the industry.
How did you come to work in rail? And how did you come to your present position as Chief Railway Officer for HS2?
The business apprenticeship was with Marconi, now Telent. We were deployed to various business units. I happened to be deployed to the transport sector, on the West Coast Main Line project.
Over the last 25 years, I’ve had sponsorship from senior leaders who have pushed me to achieve more ambitious things.
Around 2012, I transferred to work for Network Rail as Head of Workforce Safety. This was the pinnacle of my safety career. It was the job I had always wanted—setting the tone for workforce safety, and within such a big client, meant I could help to set the tone for industry too. I worked very closely with RSSB at this time, on the Close Call project using free text reporting to flag up incidents and concerns.
I was then asked by the Network Rail leadership to lead the Safety Culture Leadership and Change Programme, learning to influence the bigger agenda. From that role I was ultimately appointed Health and Safety Director for Network Rail.
I moved to HS2 in 2015 with a vision that HS2 could start afresh as a railway fit for 21st century, without legacy safety issues.
Recently I took on the role of Chief Railway Officer for HS2, accountable for delivering the right programme of works to bring the HS2 railway into use.
In rail, you’ve worked for both main contractors and for the supply chain. In your view, what is rail’s biggest safety challenge?
I’ve seen two issues, from different lenses. One is an ageing workforce. Some critical skills and knowledge of the conventional network will be lost in retirement, when we need that understanding of the system and the related skills. I’ve also observed a resistance to the adoption of new technology. Trust in technology versus trust in old ways of working is helped by the new generation coming in but needs to be adopted by the existing workforce too.
Funding also continues to be an issue. The railway is an aging asset so the ability to continue doing renewals and enhancements at a pace necessary to maintain asset integrity and safety remains a challenge.
The last five years have been unusual, given the global pandemic. What have been the most significant improvements in safety in this time?
There's been significant improvements in health. I saw, from a construction perspective on HS2, fantastic ways of maintaining new Safe Systems of Work. For example, sequencing changes were introduced to protect workforce health and wellbeing so people could continue to work during the pandemic. These often caused additional operational benefits that improved works planning and reduced exposure to multiple tasks at the same time—and therefore reduced safety risk even more than originally expected.
I also see an opportunity for greater use of technology. We can use remote monitoring and drones to give us new insights into sites and safety. We probably wouldn’t have chosen to use these pre-pandemic but we can have far more confidence in those technologies now.
What would you like to see the industry achieve in terms of safety in the next five years? Any tips on what industry can do to get there?
I want to emphasise the greater adoption of digital technology including AI. I’ve seen some super use of complex AI software systems which can develop and de-conflict a construction schedule. AI can also help with risk data, such as profiling of where incidents take place and predicting where conflict or high-risk points can occur. There's an ability to use some of this tech—not instead of people but to work with people—to add a layer of intelligence and integration, which I think is a massive opportunity for the sector.
Another risk in railways is integration. We've got changes in standards, we've got adoption of European signalling systems, track renewal systems—and the need to integrate them into the conventional network and HS2 so we can use these technologies cross-network as we bring HS2 into service. We must learn the lessons from Crossrail that hit real integration challenges, so we get integrated systems, performing safely, with the right working practices.
You haven’t always worked in rail; you’ve also worked in non-rail construction projects. What could rail learn about safety from other industries?
I think we could look across infrastructure more, to understand how other industries manage and mitigate their risks. For instance, the water sector has shutdown periods, and a regulated framework where they’re monitored for performance and funded accordingly. In construction there have been some fantastic steps forward in terms of managing fatigue, managing working practice, managing health. In HS2 we do constant tunnelling operations and had to look at 12-hour shifts versus 8-hour shifts. What’s the best handover routine to protect workforce health, guard against fatigue, while also increasing productivity? I think rail could take some lessons from these industries.
A lot of RSSB’s work is focused on improving rail safety. How can readers make the most of this at their organisations?
Well, the first thing I'd say is get curious and have a look at the resources that RSSB produces, because you'll think about one or two things like the Rule Book, but you won't be aware of all of them.
For example, everybody is focused on the sustainability agenda right now. RSSB are ahead of the curve and have already produced sustainability materials, there on the website free for members to use.
So, I would really encourage people to think ‘what's my problem statement’, look at what RSSB's got available, and see whether you can steal with pride, use, and adopt. Drive up the safety and sustainability benefits, but drive down the cost as well, because it’s already there and available. I also see an awful lot of value in data—and I use RSSB resources for the data because they have so much intelligence. When I'm making design decisions, for example, I need to forecast public and passenger behaviour, and look at what's gone in the past. So, I rely on RSSB data, to help me to make good, informed design decisions.
What is rail’s greatest unappreciated strength?
Rail is the backbone of the UK infrastructure. It employs hundreds of thousands of people. Most of those people get careers for life, and build a career throughout the industry, so I think our industry has a family feel.
Rail connectivity drives up jobs, drives up local housing, drives up local land value - causing regeneration. A good example is the Birmingham New Street development. Good rail connectivity brings increased investment and regeneration. We should remember that rail is part of UK economic infrastructure, rather than just a means to get from A to B.
What would be your parting message to your colleagues in industry?
I would say it's a critical public service that we do. Whether it’s freight or passengers, rail is a fundamental backbone to the UK, and we should all be proud for what we contribute.
Find out how data can help prioritise and improve workforce health and wellbeing. Visit our Graphic Insights for more information.
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