Spreading The Word

QPA Health & Safety Scheme opens its doors to all

‘There are certain things that, inherently, trade associations can do better than individual companies – presenting the ‘bigger picture’ on health and safety best practice is one’. So says the Quarry Products Association’s director of health and safety, Martin Isles, who, in the following article, charts the rise and rise of health and safety from ‘also ran’ to ‘No.1 core value’.

In the 1970s and 80s when BACMI, the predecessor of the Quarry Products Association (QPA), organized its annual ‘Safety Competition’, there was scant regard to communicating best practice, the emphasis being on finding the ‘best quarry’, the ‘best depot’ etc. Inevitably, the clutch of rather uninspiring trophies tended to be shared among an elite group – the class acts of their day. At this time, the lowly BACMI Safety Panel was a mere subset of the influential Aggregates Committee, and ‘health’ was well down the agenda.

Evolving attitudes and inspired leadership

In 1996, before the QPA came into being, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) proclaimed that quarrying was ‘three times more dangerous than construction’.  

The following year, before the coming together of BACMI and SAGA, ‘health’ was added into the Competition and, in 1998, the QPA’s first scheme booklet was published (fig. 1) recording the 1997 winners and illustrating some of the good ideas to have emerged that year.

In July 2000, an invitation was extended by the then Health and Safety Commission to a range of organizations directly involved in, or allied to quarrying, to sign up to a voluntary pledge to halve accidents within five years. This, the first ‘Hard Target’, was a spectacular success, capturing the attention and inspiring quarry industry leaders across the land.

The early gains – the so-called ‘low-hanging fruit’ – provided many easy wins. Nevertheless, even by 2001, the QPA’s own data showed that quarrying still had twice the construction industry’s accident incidence rate, as reported by the HSE (fig, 2). However, the fundamental transformation had begun in earnest. ‘Quarrying’ was clearly very determined to shake off the ignominy of being labelled the industry with the ‘second worst record to deep-sea fishing’.

In 2001, the health and safety competition evolved into an awards scheme and the self-improvement incentives for sites to enter became obvious. Scheme booklets were published annually.  

It was not until 2006, however, that the biggest step forward was taken, with significant financial assistance from the Minerals Industry Sustainable Technology (MIST) programme, formulated via MIRO to disburse Aggregates Levy funds to appropriate causes. This step was the creation of www.Safequarry.com

Safequarry.com

The arrival of Safequarry.com (fig. 3) marked a sea change in the ability to communicate best practice and many other aspects of health and safety, to a potentially infinite audience across the English-speaking world.

Since then, this unique and ever-growing collection of industry-focused information has become the health and safety ‘resource of choice’ across the quarry industry, being freely available, regularly refreshed and increasingly renowned, internationally.

Currently, there are over 600 selected items of ‘best practice’ on Safequarry.com – their provenance exclusively based on successive QPA Awards Schemes. Mini-videos have become an established highlight of the annual awards event in London and each of these may be called-up rapidly on Safequarry.com, which now sports 126 individual mini-videos, ranging from 1 to 3min in length.

Safequarry is an effective resource for training purposes, especially via the ‘Toolbox Talks’ section, to which a boost has been given by the HSE’s recent approval for the latest QNJAC ‘Target Zero’ toolbox talks to be featured on Safequarry, where navigation is inevitably easier than on the HSE’s own website, which comprises more than 30,000 pages.

Continuing Competence – Safequarry’s contribution

Operational personnel need to maintain hard-won proof of competence and Safequarry’s CPD feature allows registered users to produce, in a matter of seconds, a CPD report that summarizes the user’s Safequarry browsing record. If required, the report also shows each resource page that has been accessed and on what dates. To access this feature, users are reminded that they do need to be registered (a 90-second online process). Also, to ensure that their CPD records are complete, users need to ‘log in’ on every occasion that they access Safequarry. The CPD record can be recalled for any date period and covers all resources, ie Best Practice; Incident Alerts; Hot Topics & Guidance; and Toolbox Talks.

Why else register on Safequarry.com?

One of the most valuable features of this website is the ‘Incident Alerts’ capability. Apart from providing access to recent incidents, or ‘near hits’, registered users receive auto-emails within 24h of any new Alert, Hot Topic, Guidance or Toolbox Talk being uploaded. If the subject of the email is of no interest, it can simply be ignored, but for those who realize that, yes, ‘that incident could happen on my site’, one mouse-click on the link brings that Alert – and its learning points – immediately to hand.

This vibrancy of the Incident Alerts system relies heavily on company personnel submitting new Incident Alerts to the QPA. Anyone responsible for health and safety should make it their business to submit alerts to the Association via email to Hilary Arrowsmith at: harrowsmith@qpa.org. Doing so might just prevent another injury, thereby helping the industry to improve further and faster.

Sharing Good Practice

The latest examples of good practice also appear in ‘Sharing good practice 2008/09’ (fig. 4). A limited number of bound copies are being circulated to where its benefit is maximized – on site. An electronic version will be uploaded shortly on to ‘Safequarry’.

All entries in the guide have already been uploaded individually on to Safequarry. Those marked ‘On Video’ prompt the reader to access the mini-video online at Safequarry.

HM Inspectors of Quarries are issued with copies of these guides and may ask site managers if they have considered utilizing some of the ideas that could have relevance on site.

Challenge to Hillhead exhibitors

As a trial in 2008, a few entries were from companies not in membership of the QPA. Figures 5–10 illustrate some of the entries that were, or could have been, entered by manufacturers or suppliers.

With Hillhead 2009 having been postponed for 12 months, companies marketing innovative products or systems comprising ‘best practice’, who are keen to promote the health and safety features of their products or services, are challenged to enter the QPA Health & Safety Awards Scheme 2009.

Challenge to contractors

Are you a contractor to this industry?  If so, you will know your job well, but could your specialist knowledge help protect the health and safety of others? By entering the QPA Awards 2009, you might just be doing yourself a big favour. What better publicity to prove your innovative approach to problem-solving, than to be featured by the QPA as a contractor who goes that ‘extra mile’?

Topics for 2009 Scheme

From the date of publication of this article, interested manufacturers and suppliers, indeed all entrants, have two months or so in which to submit their entries, the closing date being Friday 1 May 2009.

Entries are best made online, via www.Safequarry.com, but can also be emailed to Joy de Jesus at the QPA: joy@qpa.org. In all cases, a selection of high-quality photographs should accompany each entry. Up to six high-resolution photos can be submitted online. Alternatively, photos can be burned on to a labelled CD-ROM and mailed to the QPA at 38-44 Gillingham Street, London SW1V 1HU, marked for the attention of Mrs J de Jesus. Receipt of entries will be acknowledged.

For non-members of the QPA/British Cement Association there is an administration fee of £75+VAT per entry, which will be advised clearly on the entry form but levied after receipt of entries. The scheme’s independent judges will review and may wish to inspect the subject of an entry. Entries which are not deemed to demonstrate at least good practice, will be not be eligible for publicity. As with similar schemes, the judges’ decisions will be final.

A world-class industry?

Any company, members or non-members of the QPA or BCA, including those that were planning to exhibit at ‘Hillhead 2009’, and all contractors, are eligible to enter the QPA Health & Safety Awards. So do yourselves a favour and help the quarrying industry to become even safer and healthier, indeed, to become – in the words of the HSE – a world-class industry.