Construction Infonet - December 2012
London 2012
To round up 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 sites.
Health and safety
Building the venues and infrastructure for London 2012 was one of the largest construction projects in Europe.
The main construction project was completed in July 2011, on time, within budget and with an excellent health and safety record:
- 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
Note: All statistics supplied by the Olympic Delivery Authority
The learning legacy
New Learning Legacy website
Through the Learning Legacy project, the Olympic Delivery Authority (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.
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.’
Complementing the research reports is a report providing an overview of health and safety on the London 2012 construction programme:
Case studies
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.
HSE’s Top 10 tips from London 2012
There are several recurring key themes that emerge as contributing to the good health and safety record during London 2012 -
- Leadership
- Set the tone on safety: make your expectations clear and lead by example on site - ‘walk the walk, talk the talk’
- Make sure your workforce is ‘happy, healthy and here’ by giving health risk management equal priority to accident prevention
- Planning
- Communication
- Make sure supervisors have the right skills to lead the workforce effectively: as well as technical knowledge, they need good communication skills
- A short daily activity briefing before work starts will pay dividends for both safety and efficiency
- Visual standards - posters or photographs illustrating health and safety ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts' - can be a good way of getting messages across
- Worker engagement
- 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
- 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
And finally
Seasons Greetings to all our subscribers. We wish you all a safe and healthy New Year.
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