Construction health and safety update December 2012 - Learning from London 2012 Olympic Games

London 2012

To round up our construction commentary for 2012, we thought we would highlight the health and safety successes of the London 2012 Olympic Games and point you in the direction of some ideas for implementing similar good practice on your own construction sites.

Health and safety

Building the venues and infrastructure for London 2012 was one of the largest construction projects over undertaken in Europe. Our Stephen Asbury was pleased to have played a small part in recognising the performance of those who built the games infrastructure, as he represented IOSH as a member of the judging panel for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) health, safety and environmental awards in 2009 and 2010.

The main construction project was completed in July 2011, on time, within budget and with an excellent health and safety record, summarised below:

·         Construction workforce on the Olympic Park peaked at 12,500 workers and totalled 46,000 workers over the duration of the project

·         Over 80 million hours worked on the Olympic Park

·         30 periods of one million hours worked without a reportable injury, plus five periods of two million hours and two periods of three million hours

·         Accident frequency rate of 0.16 - well below the average for the UK construction industry and below the national average for all workplaces

·         Fewer than 150 RIDDOR-reportable injuries over the duration of the project

·         No work-related fatalities

The learning legacy

Through the Learning Legacy project, ODA is sharing the knowledge and the lessons learned from the construction of the Olympic Park. This website contains lots of useful information including:

·         Champion products  - standards and guidance that can be adapted to your site

·         Micro reports  - to share solutions and ideas about how health and safety was managed throughout London 2012 projects.

Research

HSE co-operated with the ODA and others on a series of research projects to identify and analyse the health and safety good practice and lessons learned from the London 2012 construction project. The final research report was launched on 30 November 2012 – see Research Report RR955 - Pre-conditioning for success: Characteristics and factors ensuring a safe build for the Olympic Park

Complementing the research reports is a report providing an overview of health and safety on the London 2012 construction programme – see Delivering health and safety on the development of the London 2012 Olympic Park and Athletes’ Village

Key learning message

‘Successful safety management relies on systems and people working together in tandem - neither is sufficient on its own and they rely on each other to achieve the best outcomes.’

Case studies

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prepared a series of short case studies to demonstrate some of the new and practical solutions used to manage health, safety and welfare during the London 2012 construction project.

Top 10 tips for all construction sites learned from London 2012

Experience from the construction of the Games facilities identified several recurring key themes that emerge as contributing to the good health and safety record during London 2012:

·         Leadership

o    Set the tone on safety: make your expectations clear and lead by example  on site - ‘walk the walk, talk the talk’

o    Make sure your workforce is ‘happy, healthy and here’ by giving health risk management equal priority to accident prevention

·         Planning

o    Plan ahead: take time out before starting on a complicated piece of work to consider the risks and work out how to manage them

o    Adapt working practices to manage identified risks : focus on practical measures, there is no need to produce lengthy documents

o    Review and learn: where health and safety failings are identified, look at what went wrong and adapt risk management arrangements to avoid a recurrence

·         Communication

o    Make sure supervisors have the right skills to lead the workforce effectively: as well as technical knowledge, they need good communication skills

o    A short daily activity briefing  before work starts will pay dividends for both safety and efficiency

o    Visual standards - posters or photographs illustrating health and safety ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts'  - can be a good way of getting messages across

·         Worker engagement

o    Listen to workers and involve them in problem solving: a two-way dialogue is essential if workers are to feel they have a real stake in health and safety

o    Establish a ‘fair blame’ culture on health and safety: if mistakes are made, use them as shared learning points; if rules are flouted, apply sanctions