Health at work – whose responsibility it is anyway?

British Safety Council Annual Conference to take place in London on 5 October 2016

THE British Safety Council will be holding its 2016 Annual Conference, entitled: ‘Health and work in a hanging world’, on Wednesday 5 October at The King’s Fund, London. The conference will attempt to de-mystify the meaning and place of ‘health’ in the workplace.

The speakers will address the pertinent and still controversial issue of responsibility for health in the workplace: what should employers be doing and how can they encourage staff to manage and improve their health? How can this responsibility be best shared?

In the last few years, health has been creeping up both public and corporate business agendas. However, understanding what it means to companies of all sizes, where it starts and finishes, and whose responsibility it is, is still unclear and continues to fuel debates in all industry sectors.

The conference speakers will address these issues while sharing their professional insights and personal experiences.

The conference will be chaired by Steve Hails, director of health, safety and well-being at Thames Tideway Tunnel. He is also the former health and safety director of Crossrail. The keynote speaker at the event will be Professor Dame Carol Black, a senior policy advisor on work and health to the Government.

The event will feature a number of case studies, a panel discussion and group sessions, and  will include presentations from: Kizzy Augustin, senior associate at Pinsent Masons; and Lawrence Waterman, director of health and safety at Battersea Power Station.

Mike Robinson, chief executive of the British Safety Council, said: ‘A clear challenge facing us as an industry is ‘health’. We know that ‘safety’ has dominated the conversation for decades. Now we are looking at the place of health in this debate. Is it occupational health or is it health and well-being?

‘The question remains how do we encourage health: what opportunities are there to learn lessons from the safety culture to help build a health culture? We also know that mental health is a particularly important aspect of this and we have so much to do in terms of addressing just this element of health in a more coherent way.’

Conference tickets cost £195.00 plus VAT for British Safety Council members and £245.00 plus VAT for non-members. For more information and booking details, visit: www.britsafe.org