Horizon explores: Health and Safety
Strategy challenges rail to unite amid change
The coming Rail Industry’s Health and Safety Strategy has been calibrated to meet the future needs of industry.
What’s required of rail leaders? RSSB’s Operational Feedback Lead, Greg Morse, reports.
Greg MorseOperational Feedback Lead, RSSB
Early on 6 July 1978, the Up Sleeper from Penzance caught fire near Taunton, when a number of linen bags placed against an electric heater began to burn. In all, 12 people would be killed. The investigation confirmed the cause of the accident but found too that it was a case of lessons not being learned—or not being shared.
Five years earlier, a passenger and an attendant on a Glasgow–Euston sleeper had found a smouldering linen bag which had been placed against a similar heater. At Rugby, a year before Taunton, a small fire was discovered among mail bags resting against a convector that had no protector. British Rail’s London Midland Region subsequently fitted notices advising against placing bags next to heaters—a modification that did not find its way to the Western.
If the lessons learnt by the London Midland had been shared with the Western, the Taunton sleeper fire might not have happened. The message is clear: safety can only be improved when we share good practice and good ideas. Yet if safety can be improved by sharing, so too can health.
In January 2020, Covid-19 was little more than an interesting news item, coming after the domestic and political issues, and the latest from the world of entertainment. Arguably, we should have seen it coming, because from China it reached Italy, and then—if not before—there was an inevitability that it would quickly come to Britain. It did, and the first national lockdown came into effect on 23 March 2020. Some denied the existence of the virus. Many more were frightened.
We conquer fear through knowledge, and one of the first things RSSB did was to share practical guidance on protecting rail staff, making decisions under pressure, applying or deviating from standards and operational rules, and undertaking risk assessments.
Rail companies quickly put in additional controls to prevent coronavirus transmission. They quickly reprioritised their workloads so that people, food, fuel, medicines, and waste removal came first. In short, the industry worked together, and worked together well.
For Claire Mann, MD of South Western Railway, the industry is ‘good at planning and delivering’. We saw it with the 2012 Olympics, the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, and her funeral later the same year. As Mann says: ‘We know how to pull out all the stops, write a plan, and deliver when it matters’.
When our predecessor strategy, Leading Health and Safety on Britain’s Railway (LHSBR), was first issued in 2016, the focus was on leadership and how health and safety issues were managed at that time. Now the skills expounded by Mann are going to matter a whole lot more, for the years ahead will bring much change.
Changes cost, and over the next two decades or so, there will be more as the operation and maintenance of Britain’s railways alter in ways that will introduce new risks. However, it is important to understand that these changes will also bring new opportunities to address long-standing issues.
Our response to climate change, an increasingly digital railway, and the introduction of battery and hydrogen powered trains will create new challenges but also improve our carbon footprint and attract new business. Strategies to improve accessibility, capacity and performance will come in here, and could create opportunities to improve safety.
Fundamental changes to when and how the infrastructure and rolling stock are maintained will create opportunities to modernise working practices and conditions, which will in turn deliver significant improvements in occupational safety, work-related ill-health and staff wellbeing.
By working together, we can continue to improve safety but minimise the financial cost. Collective wisdom can help us realise our vision for a healthy workforce, realise our vision for continuing growth and do our bit to make Britain greener.
There is a bank of legislation behind all this, but to be truly effective we need to work together effectively. And that’s what our all-new Rail Industry Health and Safety Strategy (RIHSS) is about. RIHSS focuses the industry’s health and safety vision for Control Period 7 (2024-2029) by:
identifying the opportunities and challenges presented by planned industry changes
monitoring the delivery of key strategies and initiatives
placing greater emphasis on the maturity of duty holders’ health and safety management systems.
To help achieve these aims, the industry has a collaboration framework of cross-industry sector risk groups. Each group reviews safety performance, risk and learning information supplied by RSSB, using this to identify emerging trends and create and implement any plans needed to address them. The groups are also a forum for information and good practice sharing. After all, addressing problems alone can be costly. Coming together as a collective brings considerable cost-savings to everyone.
The RIHSS is primarily aimed at railway leaders, senior managers, safety professionals, and those who participate in the collaborative group framework. Everyone needs to be familiar with the strategy and the collaborative work needed to deliver improved performance. But how to begin?
The RIHSS will be published in 2024. The first move will be to share it with your senior leadership team. But in the meantime, use your health and safety professionals to help you understand the benefits that come from effective collaboration with other companies across your industry sector and operational area. The key to unlocking the strategy’s potential is to identify the risk and capability themes that align best with your company risk profiles.
You should also talk to your peers whenever possible to discuss thoughts, ideas and common problems. What can happen in Perth could also happen in Penzance, while the solution to a problem could be hiding in an office in Plymouth. You won’t know if you don’t reach out. It’s also important to engage with trade unions and the workforce, to involve a broad cross-section of those who will help develop and implement the solutions that improve performance.
Organisations also should participate in the collaboration effort—at regional, sector or national level. This will need commitment, but the benefits will outweigh the costs and help build and retain public confidence in the railway.
In short, to deliver the strategy successfully, rail industry leaders and senior managers should:
understand, endorse, champion and communicate the strategy within their companies and the wider industry
get involved in the collaboration effort
agree to embed or implement any programmes of work recommended by the specialist risk groups
integrate health, safety and wellbeing into wider business plans. This will help achieve the RIHSS vision and ensure the continuing viability of the system as a whole.
Coming together as a collective brings considerable cost-savings to everyone.
