Introduction
The current rate of sickness absence in the rail industry is nearly twice the national rate. This results in over a million lost workdays every year. A healthy workforce is key for a high-performing network that:
is safe to use
meets all customer needs
is financially sustainable.
The industry is undergoing a culture shift to elevate health to the same level as safety. To achieve this, industry leaders must continue to consider the health risks linked to its activities, standards, decision-making process, and culture.This document sets out RSSB’s long-term strategy for health and wellbeing data. Its aim is to help industry manage health and wellbeing on a par with safety. It complements the refreshed Rail Health and Safety Strategy (RHSS), which was developed to deliver the healthiest, safest affordable railway in the world. Health and wellbeing is an area for collaboration. And we want to enable a system that provides a data-led, evidence-based approach to support the vision to manage health and wellbeing on a par with safety.
Between 2021 and 2024, there was a successful trial of a prototype Health and Wellbeing Data Hub (T1259) involving 21 rail organisations. The impact of that trial was immediate, with the following successes observed:
Companies plan their wellbeing strategies using the data and individual reports sent to senior leaders and MDs to understand areas they need to focus on.
There are an average of 150 views per month of the online dashboard per company. There are also more than 100 users of the online dashboard.
Here is some feedback from users during the pilot:
‘The dashboard has focused our analysis of health data within the company to enable us to make data-driven decisions about where to target our resources to address areas of health concern’ – MTR Elizabeth Line.
‘The dashboard has helped us focus on improving the quality of the health data we collect so we can develop meaningful and measurable health KPIs. It also helped us identify issues in our data quality such as a large proportion of our absence causes being undefined. This drove improvements in the way we capture & record the causes of absence, so the real reasons were identified and recorded’ – Network Rail.
Our benchmarking meetings were ‘very insightful and brought to light gaps that [VolkerRail] will rectify’ – VolkerRail.
ORR users find our quarterly industry reports ‘extremely useful for their work and to identify industry trends’ – ORR.
We are now looking to continue to enhance industry’s health data capabilities, building on insights from T1259.
The full Health and Wellbeing Data Hub will continue to inform company strategies, capturing data to:
shape policy
benchmark performance
identify trends
enable prioritisation of resources.
Adopting evidence-based approaches to tackle industry challenges, such as an ageing workforce and the rise in chronic conditions, will lead to an improved approach to the prevention of harm. It will enable early identification and intervention of health risks. It will also mean the industry will be able to react to and proactively prevent work-related ill-health. In addition, it will help members more easily meet their legislative health and safety requirements while reducing cost.
The Health and Wellbeing Data Hub supports the RSSB’s Digital Transformation Strategy and business commitments. The long-term aim is for it to become the equivalent of SMIS for health and wellbeing. We want rail to lead the way globally by acting as a source of guidance and inspiration to other industries. The Health and Wellbeing Data Hub will help show how work can improve people’s lives, leading to a healthy, safe, and sustainable railway.
This strategy is ambitious and long-term. So, it will be reviewed regularly as the industry’s needs evolve and requirements change.
