Investing in people, investing in success
From data-driven insights to improved well-being, discover how prioritising health benefits the entire industry.
Anna Plodowski Senior Content Editorial Manager, RSSB
We are committed to prioritising employee wellbeing and the safety of rail through the industry’s Rail Health and Safety Strategy (‘the strategy’). This strategy is designed to improve health throughout the industry. However, improving health can have secondary effects too. For instance, it may help to improve the industry’s reliability, resilience, and even some of its costs.
Good physical and mental health is essential for employees' well-being. When staff are happy and healthy, they are more productive. Importantly too, they are more able to manage unexpected events. This, in turn, can have a positive impact on the network’s ability to cope with necessary but sudden changes to operations. Although the planning that industry does tries to minimise these, sudden unexpected changes to operations are sometimes essential.
In the months and years ahead, the work of the Rail Wellbeing Alliance groups and the System Safety and Risk Group will help industry deliver on the strategy. This activity will be focused on five key areas, two of which are particularly important for health: health and wellbeing, and occupational health and safety.
Our drive is to help industry optimise resources so that it can thrive even when resources are constrained. That means helping investment decisions to be better. So we’re creating a long-term health and wellbeing data strategy, aligned to the RSSB Digital Transformation strategy.
And that isn’t the only way strategic action to improve health can help. We’re building on past achievements using health data. The Annual Health and Safety Report is already valued because of the regular overview it gives industry of key health issues. The Mental Health Survey published in 2022 gave useful insights too. And our recent Graphic Insights page about health data, published in 2024, showcased the power of health and wellbeing data.
But the whole industry will be able to make an even bigger impact on health if the use of data is made easier, and increased. So we’re particularly excited about the roll-out of our Health and Safety Data Hub later in 2024. This will help users access and produce real-time insights into industry trends and performance. It will empower industry to make data-driven decisions that improve health. And mental health is important too. So we’ve improved the Railway Mental Health Charter, using feedback from charter members and recent research. The new framework helps industry embed more effective policies, programmes, and activities for mental health.
As we move forward with these initiatives, we are confident that they will have a lasting impact on health in the rail industry.
The Railway Mental Health Charter (RMHC) is a joint project between Southeastern and RSSB.
It’s a framework to help companies in rail improve the way they deal with employee mental health.
The new RMHC framework was launched in May 2024. It has been revised in response to feedback from charter members and the latest evidence about what works.
It has five broad areas for ongoing action, such as health monitoring and hazard management. It highlights the role of senior leaders and managers for each action, and how to involve employees. This will help organisational efforts be more effective. The new version of the charter also includes a checklist with more detailed suggestions for specific actions in each area.