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The London 2012 construction project:

Health and Safety as an enabler for

success

Melodie Gilbert

Head of Ill Health Prevention - Park Health, ODA

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260Ha complex, in an urban area

Contaminated land

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Creating the largest

new urban park in

Europe for 150 years

South of the Park –

hard landscaped

and the gardens

North of the Park –

softer, with a huge

new wetland

Cleaning 1m tonnes of soil to prepare the site

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13km of tunnels, undergrounding power lines

Barhale

Safety Culture & Leadership –

A Step Change in Performance

£2 in every £3 spent on infrastructure

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Large temporary structures – no “white elephants”

New pic of Velo

Velodrome Iconic buildings – challenging to construct

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New pic of Stadium

Venues and Park on time and under budget

Building Europe’s largest housing complex

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Olympic Games

- the world’s biggest event • 205 countries

• 5,000 Olympic Family

• 17,800 athletes & team officials

• 22,000 media

• 8 million tickets sold

• 147 countries

• 1,000 Paralympic Family

• 4,000 athletes & team officials

• 4,000 media

• 2.7 million tickets sold

• 100,000 workforce including volunteers

• 4 billion global audience

The Paralympic Games

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Celebrations of Success for all !

01 Oct 08

16 11th March 2009

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

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The Workforce

Predominantly male, average age 47

Migrant workers

Poor lifestyles

Small companies/self employed without benefits packages -

if they don’t work they don’t get paid

Poor contact with Health Care providers, NHS etc

Common Construction Diseases

• Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome

• Noise Induced Hearing Loss

• Musculo-skeletal Disease

• Occupational lung Disease

• Occupational Skin Disease

• Silicosis

• Occupational Cancers

‘Our vision is to go beyond eliminating

preventable illnesses, injuries, business

losses and environmental harm…

It extends to enhancing the well-being of

all involved in the project work’

No Pressure then….

The Challenge

• Health perceived as difficult compared with other management topics

• Latency - causes not obvious

• Interventions not perceived as easy

• Domain of doctors and nurses

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The Strategy

• Managing the impact of health on work

though a nurse led worker focussed

clinical service

• Managing the impact of work on health

through an occupational hygiene led

workplace focussed ill–health

prevention programme

• Promoting wellbeing by using the

workplace as a venue to promote

healthy lifestyles

WORK HEALTH

WORKPLACE - Risks registers for health

Ground Phase, Build Phase, Fit out Phase

Job Roles Possible Hazards (exposures)

Skin Respiratory Noise HAV MSD Biological Thermal

General Operatives x x

Carpenters x x x x x

Monitoring schedule

Noise

Hazardous

substance Vibration

Manual

handling

Noise Air Vib Noise HAVs Skin Lungs Noise HAVs Skin Lungs

x x x x x x x ? ? ? ?

Routine Health

surveillance

Exposure

monitoring

Baseline Health

Surveillance

Control management (assessment)

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RAG systems

Noise assessment was

undertaken on piling

operations at Team

Stadium

Enabling quieter

operations to be carried

out away from high noise

levels

WORKPLACE – Keep it simple

Workplace – measurable outcomes

Health Impact Frequency Rating

AFR = safety, EIR = environment, Health

Health impacts – not near miss/not accident or incident?

Fatality

Occupational Disease

Signs of Ill-health

Health Impacts

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Workplace – auditing improvements

Occupational Health Maturity Matrix

– The output is a maturity rating and specific

implementation plan to drive occupational health

improvement

Worker - Emergency Response

Rapid emergency response is

vital within the first 10

minutes Coordinated site wide response Nurses with A&E skills Signed agreement with (LAS)

London Ambulance Service Only 25% of all site call outs

referred to LAS

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Worker - Clinical services

Health Surveillance

Pre-placement screening

– Safety Critical Medical

– Questionnaire

D&A Testing

Treatment Service

• Lifestyle screening

• General Health Promotion

• Delivered in the workplace

• Linked with Organisations

– British Heart Foundation

• Linked with safety – Big Breakfast

Wellbeing - Engaging and Involving Workers to build trust

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Did we meet the challenge?

Independent Evaluation

• Best practice in occupational

health in construction

• Cost Benefit Analysis

– Return on investment

• Changing behaviours

– 78% of workers made changes

to the way they worked to better look after their health

– 73% of managers stated they

would behave differently in future regarding health risks in the workplace

HEADLINES FOR OH MANAGEMENT

1. Leadership buy in

• Cost benefit / retention of workers / reputational risk

2. Define what good looks like - health like safety

• Worker, workplace, wellbeing

• Risk management drives the process

• Health surveillance is a monitoring tool not a solution

1. Simple outputs that empower engagement

• Traffic lights systems / risk registers for health

2. Strategy that stands up to scrutiny and is measurable

• Evidence based – best practice

• HIFR / Health Maturity Matrix

• Scalable and Affordable - not one size fits all

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10 November 2008

30 The official Emblem of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games

and Paralympic Games Ltd is protected by copyright. © London Organising Committee

of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Ltd 2007. All rights reserved.

Thank you