All Mondays: (except Gordon Hicks Day & December Meeting)
19 January
Behavioural Safety
It’ll never happen to me” or “I’ve been doing this for 17 years and never had an accident” – how many times have you heard that? Clearly managing and dealing with complacency is a challenge. Martin Woodall from Lattitude Safety offers some practical advice on how to deal with it in a presentation that is at times fun, at times serious, and also very emotional.
Martin Woodhall has been a Safety Practitioner in various guises for 30 years. He spent 20 years with ICI, initially as a Research Scientist before moving into Health & Safety as Health & Safety Manager for the ICI Chlor Chemicals Business.
He left ICI in 1997 and became a Safety Consultant and founded Lattitude Safety in 2004, specialising in the field of behavioural safety and culture change.
Martin is passionate about health & safety and the benefits it brings. He is able to move ‘behavioural safety’ and behavioural psychology from heavy theory into something practical that people understand and can relate to.
09 February
Office Ergonomics
Katharine Metters, the lead consultant for Posturite Ltd, will give a presentation on Office Ergonimcs. She is a Chartered Physiotherapist and has a MSc in Ergonomics. She has worked in the field of Occupational Health and Ergonomics within a variety of industries including food manufacturing, retail and the utility sector, with a recent focus on the office environment. Katharine’s talk will recap the problems related to Display Screen Equipment and their possible causes. She will review how companies try to manage DSE issues and will put forward some thoughts on possible ways of improving the management of DSE, whilst still ensuring effective compliance with the legal requirements. She will broaden the discussion with consideration of some hot topics in the office such as hot desking, requests for standing desks, adaptions for pregnant ladies, adoption of flexible working and use of mobile devices. In addition, Katharine will also show how ergonomic principles can be effectively applied to prevent musculoskeletal disorders associated with manual handling in the office and driving for work.
16 March
Contractor Management
As a contractor we find that there is always disparity in the on-boarding process and the actual Health & Safety evaluation questions that we face which can range from being very sparse to being extremely in depth.
These issues are then repeated once we actually arrive at site with differing requirements for induction, paper work such as Permits to Work, Risk Assessments, Method Statements e.g. some clients do not even ask for these before commencement of the job and take no interest in the project itself. This can even extend to CDM type of work as well.
I suppose it’s all about educating clients to be intelligent clients as far as Health & Safety is concerned and to comply with the standard set by legislation and guidance!
This then generates a negative safety culture effect on our staff and engineers as they then tend to consider that clients who pay little attention to Health & Safety is the norm and that the ones that insist on all of the bells and whistles are being awkward or picky.
13 April
Annual General Meeting & HSE Update
HSE update by Chris Tilley, Senior HSE inspector who will deliver a presentation on CDM 2015 and the HSE work plan in 2015 -2016
Thursday 14th May (9.00 to 17.00 approx.)
Gordon Hicks Memorial Day – CANCELLED
About Gordon Hicks
15 June
Lessons from Litigation – Significant Recent Decisions in the Civil Courts
Niazi Fetto specialises in employment, personal injury, professional negligence and motor insurance-related disputes.
Niazi co-edits 2 Temple Garden’s personal injury and clinical negligence journal “Injury Times” and is a contributing editor of both “The Law of Human Rights” (Clayton & Tomlinson, Oxford) and “The Law of Motor Insurance” (Merkin & Stuart-Smith, Sweet & Maxwell). He is also co-author of the employer’s liability section of the UMIST Commercial Management MSc course.
In addition, Niazi is an accredited advocacy trainer for the Employment Lawyers’ Association.”
14 September
Basement Excavations
An overview of HSE’s approach to regulating basement excavations, their findings out on sites with examples of both good and bad practice and how HSE are working to improve health and safety across the industry.
Speaker:
James Hickman, HM Inspector of Health and Safety, works for the Health and Safety Executive’s Construction Division where he undertakes site inspections, investigations in to fatal and life changing incidents on construction sites and where appropriate criminal prosecutions of dutyholders.
He has first-hand experience of investigating such incidents occurring in basement excavations and recently led HSE’s two day inspection initiative on basement projects across London. Nearly 50% of sites failed unannounced site inspections.
Before joining HSE he was a Geotechnical Engineer providing ground stability solutions to the industry.
12 October
Legionella – Where are we now?
Greg Davies, Head of Service Development at Assurity Consulting
Controlling Legionella in building water systems is seen by most health and safety professionals as one of the more mature disciplines. Whether that makes it better understood and managed is a different question however.
Almost two years on from the revised and updated L8, what does successful Legionella management look like today and where are the pitfalls?
16 November
CDM – Where are we now?
Phillip Baker, Chair of the Certification Working Group of the International Safety and Health Construction Co-ordinators Organisation (ISHCCO)
CDM has now been in force for 6 months and the transitional provisions came to an end on 6 October. How has the industry responded? What are the key outstanding issues?
This presentation will provide an update on the requirements of the revised regulations and shed light on both industry’s response and clarify what is expected of duty holders.
Philip has been closely involved with the development of the CDM Regulations and can provide a unique perspective on the significant contribution that they can make to managing projects. Amongst his current projects Philip is the outgoing CDM Co-ordinator on the Northern Line extension, principal designer for a 5,000 new home development in Corby and providing principal contactor support for a new church hall in north London.
10 December (Thursday)
Key Risks in Fire Safety for companies and individuals in light of recent cases
Kizzy Augustin, Senior Associate, Pinsent Masons LLP
Kizzy will address the risks in the field of fire safety (including imprisonment for individuals) and the impact those risks might have for companies and individual safety consultants and risk assessors. This presentation will offer the rare opportunity to get a legal update (and a brief Q&A session) on fire safety case law and the consequences of failing to meet relevant statutory requirements, particularly for individuals.
Kizzy is a criminal regulatory lawyer and Senior Associate at Pinsent Masons LLP, who specialises in the defence of fire safety / health and safety matters. She is a Solicitor-Advocate with higher rights of audience, which means that she appears regularly as an advocate in court proceedings and Coroners’ inquests. Kizzy has significant experience in defending companies and senior employees in corporate manslaughter and serious fire & health and safety prosecutions. She provides strategic advice to a number of high profile corporate and commercial clients – both contentious advice in response to an actual incident, as well as preventative consultancy advice in relation to corporate policies and procedures to ensure compliance with fire & health and safety legislation.