RSSB member story
Prevention is better than cure
David Horne, London North Eastern Railway’s Managing Director, talks about health and wellbeing in rail, a once overshadowed topic.
Interview with David Horne, MD of London North Eastern Railway
David HorneManaging Director, London North Eastern RailwayNon-Executive Director, RSSB BoardChair, Rail Wellbeing Alliance
Earlier this year, David Horne, MD of London North Eastern Railway (LNER), stepped into the role of Chair of the Rail Wellbeing Alliance. RSSB caught up with him to discuss the workplace wellbeing challenges facing industry and what the cross-industry group and rail organisations are doing to tackle them.
Having graduated with a BSc in Transport Management, you didn’t just fall into the transport industry. What inspired your interest?
Like many people, I got captivated by the dynamism of the industry, the fact that there’s this ever-changing operation that is important to many people’s lives. In this people-focused industry, where no day is the same, we’re looking after lots of people who travel with us—we’re having a real impact on everybody’s life, every day. Is it any wonder the industry draws you in? I’ve been very lucky in my career so far to have worked with fantastic people who have supported me and my career, giving me opportunities to get into things that I never thought I’d get into.
You’ve held many roles across different rail organisations. What are your three career highlights?
I’ve led LNER since it was founded in 2018. It’s been a huge privilege to introduce our Azuma trains into service. They’ve been a catalyst for transforming rail travel on the East Coast Mainline, with new trains, new services, faster services, and a whole programme of business transformation that’s gone alongside that. It was a big project, and it’s been great to have been part of it.
In earlier stages of my career, I worked for South West Trains, when the Desiro trains were ordered. We came up with exciting plans to transform the business 20 years ago. That was my first taste of a new trains project.
I was on the executive team, and then became MD, at East Midlands Trains. During this time, we brought together employees from three separate companies as part of a major organisational transformation programme. Bringing people together into one company, getting them working together well, and improving train services for customers in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire was quite an achievement.
Why did you become Chair of the Rail Wellbeing Alliance?
The Rail Wellbeing Alliance (RWA) is a group of fantastic people from diverse organisations. Around four years ago, when Network Rail’s John Halsall was leading the RWA, he asked me to join as a committee member representing the train operating community. I initially championed its Occupational Health Group. When John moved from Network Rail back to the water industry, I became Chair.
The RWA’s work is hugely important to the lives of everyone who works in the industry, and I’m inspired by that. The industry is a people business, so while we might get excited by new and shiny trains, and new technology, the people are what make it. So, it’s crucial we take care of them.
Every organisation in the industry spends a lot of time thinking about safety, but we probably don’t spend enough time focusing on the health of our employees. The RWA is trying to do something about that, and it’s great that I can do my bit for employee health by chairing the group.
What are the biggest health and wellbeing challenges the industry faces?
Mental healthWhen you look at the statistics and the health indicators, it’s clear that people who work in rail are susceptible to certain health conditions more so than the general population. Take mental health as an example. It is spoken about as a problem in wider society, particularly since the pandemic, but in the rail industry, people are 22 times more likely to take a day off from work due to a mental health condition than a workplace accident.
Shift workShift work is inherent in the rail industry, whether people are working in train crew, station or infrastructure roles. With infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance in particular, a lot of it is done overnight. The data shows that working shifts increases the risk of diabetes by about a third. Compared with the general population, some employees in the industry are more susceptible to health conditions like diabetes.
The RWA is asking, what can we do about the health and wellbeing of rail workers? What support and advice can we give employers and their employees so that people working in the industry can have healthier and happier lives? There is a business dimension to this. Sickness absence in the industry is about twice the national average, which is a significant cost to the industry. We’ve been questioning and challenging how much investment goes into supporting employee health relative to the cost of sickness.
Rail Wellbeing Live seems a good example of industry investing in the health and wellbeing of its rail staff.
The RWA set up Rail Wellbeing Live in 2020 to improve the health and wellbeing of rail workers. It runs every November and is the biggest health and wellbeing movement in the history of the industry. It brings together people from across the industry who are committed to finding out how they can become fitter and more resilient as individuals and organisations. The annual event has only been made possible by the fantastic sponsors who have chosen to invest in it. Companies and employers are coming to the table and investing in workforce health.
What kind of cultural changes do initiatives like Rail Wellbeing Live bring?
Around 10–15 years ago, we probably looked at the cost of sickness and thought the only way we could tackle it was through different management approaches to absence, for instance, making sure people had a genuine reason to be absent. Now, we’re trying to make sure, where possible, that people don’t fall ill in the first place. It’s about prevention, which will call for both a change in lifestyles and managing the approach to challenges like shift work better. It’s partly around what employers can do, but it’s also about providing the right information and education to employees. It’s broader than the workplace. What we do in our personal lives, such as diet and exercise, matters.
How is LNER responding to these challenges? What can other rail companies learn from your approach?
There are lots of examples around the industry of people doing great things to support employee wellbeing. Grantham station, where LNER has a team of people, is a great example. The station manager recognised that station staff will occasionally face challenges and traumatic situations, which can contribute to poor mental health, often anxiety. So, she pulled together word-based wellbeing boards for the wellbeing room, a room at the station where people can have quiet time. The boards boast inspirational messages, mental health tips, signposts to support, and peer-to-peer recognition. These positive messages help to balance out the challenging stuff that goes on at work.
You’ve been a member of RSSB’s Board for four years. What role is RSSB playing to improve the health and wellbeing of rail workers?
I think RSSB is a remarkable organisation, and lots of people don’t know how much it does for the industry and the capability it has. For one, it’s able to connect industry experts with experts and professionals from outside rail, bringing them together to move the industry forward.
Take the RWA as an example. We’ve been able to connect senior rail leaders with people from the world of health and wellbeing. We wouldn’t have been able to develop the Health and Wellbeing Index, a way of measuring health and wellbeing, without the help of Dr Bridget Juniper, a chartered occupational psychologist from outside the industry, for instance. But we were able to tap into her expertise to create it. Even England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, has expressed an interest in this award-winning work—proof that the rail industry can demonstrate leadership to other sectors in employee health and wellbeing.
There are lots of other examples within RSSB where rail experts collaborate with psychologists, data scientists, engineers, and research scientists from other industries. It’s a cornucopia of knowledge, intelligence and passion.
What does RSSB need from rail companies to be more effective in its role?
A challenge we keep coming back to in conversations is how we can expand the invaluable work that’s done by the RWA and similar cross-industry groups managed by RSSB, as well as RSSB itself. What we do is for the benefit of rail companies and their employees, so we’re keen to get the information, research, tools, products, apps—whatever it is—into their hands. Across both health and safety, RSSB and groups like the RWA do amazing work. I would encourage you to come and find out more about it, take some of it away, use it in your business, and let us know how you get on.
What is rail’s biggest underappreciated strength? How can it be built on?
The industry is made up of a broad set of organisations and individuals that are confronting a range of challenges. So, somebody in our industry is likely thinking about, and working on, a challenge faced by your organisation. This creates an opportunity for you to leverage their knowledge, rather than duplicating the effort.
A great example is around improving fatigue management. Some businesses, including Croydon Tramlink, have done a huge amount of thinking and work on improving fatigue management, and others in industry can tap into this.
By coming together as an industry, or as a subset of the industry, we can learn from each other, make faster progress, and make headway on things that we might otherwise feel we’d be stuck with.
The RWA, its subgroups and RSSB want to help your organisation improve the health and wellbeing of its workforce. Go to our website to explore our resources.
View page
