News from around the World
November 2013
- Sheila Pantry OBE, BA, FCLIP receives IOSH/SHP Lifetime Achievement Award 2013
- RoSPA Occupational Safety and Health Congress: Behind the scenes of safety excellence
- NIVA course on Maritime Occupational Medicine, Exposures and Health Effects at Sea
- ECHA Report published on the methodologies employed in the environmental risk assessment of petroleum substances
- UK Lecture challenges safety professionals and business community to join forces on accident prevention
- European Report sheds light on the key factors determining OSH practice
- Classification, Labelling, Packaging update
- New Risk Assessment Tool
- IRSST – Quebec, Canada new reports
Sheila Pantry OBE, BA, FCLIP receives IOSH/SHP Lifetime Achievement Award 2013
Sheila Pantry OBE, BA, FCLIP is a pivotal figure in occupational safety and health due to her pioneering use of computer technology in information management, her current major electronic service from her own company is OSH UPDATE + FIRE see www.oshupdate.com
She is also known for her development and management of the world-renowned UK Health and Safety Executive information service, which included establishing a HSE public enquiry service that handled 250,000 enquiries a year. In 1979 she pioneered the development of HSELINE – HSE’s electronic database that is included the OSH UPDATE collection.
As the technologies developed Sheila also pioneered the use of CD-ROM technology and produced a number of occupational health, safety, fire and environment bibliographic and full text services including OSH-ROM.
Sheila writes, edits and produces websites for the health, safety, fire and environment sectors, and has produced a series of books for the information industry.
She has worked on the European Commission programmes in telematics and living/working conditions in a number of European countries, and was instrumental in the development of a Masters syllabus in information engineering.
This year’s Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) Lifetime Achievement Award winner is a prolific speaker. She regularly gives talks and presents seminars, both in the UK and internationally, on all aspects of information management, staff training and development, as well as the use of health, safety, fire, chemical and environment information. She was a visiting lecturer at the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield, and served on British Library Advisory Committees in London and at Boston Spa. www.bl.uk
Sheila runs seminars and conferences on all aspects of health, safety and fire and is an active member of the UK Fire Information Group www.figuk.org.uk, the UK Fire and Rescue Statistics User Group www.frsug.org and the National Occupational Health and Safety Committee at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).
Few could match the global reach of this influential figure, who has set up information services and trained staff in Australia; Bulgaria; Canada; Finland; Greece; Hong Kong; Hungary; Ireland; Jordan; Lithuania; the Netherlands; New Zealand; Poland; Switzerland; Turkey; the USA and Zimbabwe.
Sheila was awarded an OBE by HM The Queen in 1993 for services to the health and safety information industry. In 2000 the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) awarded her its Distinguished Service Award.
She has worked closely with the Geneva-based International Labour Office Health and Safety Centre. In 2004 she received a certificate of appreciation for giving 25 years of untiring support to the International Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre in providing training, editing and hosting the CIS Newsletter www.sheilapantry.com/cis
Sheila can now add one of the most prestigious awards in occupational safety and health to her long list of achievements see www.shp-iosh-awards.co.uk/about-the-awards
She said: “As a constant and persistent advocate of the importance and communication of information and training in making workplaces of the world ever safer and healthier, I am really delighted and extremely proud to receive this award. I urge everyone to remember to ask for validated and authoritative guidance and advice in whichever industry sector they work – there is so much available!”
The IOSH Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Santia, honours those individuals who have furthered the status and practice of occupational safety and health, leading to substantial improvements to the lives of working people. There has only been nine such previous individuals.
RoSPA Occupational Safety and Health Congress: Behind the scenes of safety excellence
Wednesday, November 27, 2013, 15 Hatfields, Chadwick Court, Southbank, London SE1 8DJ, UK
With a programme comprised entirely of case studies, RoSPA’s 2013 Congress delivers practical insight into real-life management situations – covering topics such as leadership, performance management and mental health.
Case study organisations include:
- HSE – Principal Inspector, Eddie Scoggins, will present case study advice on overcoming barriers to effective accident investigation.
- Airbus Operations Ltd
- Finning
- Home Retail Group
- Northern Rail
- Magnox Limited and more.
Further Information and online booking: 2013 RoSPA Occupational Safety and Health Congress or call +44 (0)121 248 2089.
NIVA course on Maritime Occupational Medicine, Exposures and Health Effects at Sea
12-15 May 2014, Hotel Marienlyst, Helsingør, Denmark
This course will provide an overview of current issues regarding maritime physical, chemical and biological risk exposures and the resulting health outcomes with special emphasis on recent and ongoing research in the field and the identification of research needs.
Main Topics:
- Occupational and work-related diseases in the maritime setting
- Physical exposures and effects: Radiation, noise and vibrations
- Toxicological issues: chemical exposures from work on board, from the cargo and from venomous afflictions at sea
- Infections in seafarers
- Work-related dermatoses on board
- Work-related lung diseases on board
- Gastrointestinal diseases on board
- Cancer of seafarers
- Seasickness
- Biological exposures on board and infectious diseases
- Fatigue and other maritime risk exposures for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases
- Research needs relating to work-related disorders in the maritime trades
The course leader is Associate Professor Jørgen Riis Jepsen, Centre of Maritime Health and Society, Denmark.
Contact: Katja Pekkarinen, Course coordinator, NIVA, Topeliuksenkatu 41 a A, 00250 Helsinki, Finland | www.niva.org/courses
ECHA Report published on the methodologies employed in the environmental risk assessment of petroleum substances
Commissioned by ECHA – European Chemicals Agency, this report provides conclusions and offers recommendations for improving the scientific validity and applicability of the most common methods used to assess the environmental risks of petroleum substances.
UK Lecture challenges safety professionals and business community to join forces on accident prevention
Encouraging workplaces and the wider community to come together to tackle the scourge of accidents is essential in the drive to save lives and cut NHS costs.
The measures needed to help deliver Britain’s public health objectives were outlined in the keynote address at the sixth Allan St John Holt Memorial Lecture on 22 October 2013. The lecture is staged annually by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) and Royal Mail.
The lecture, entitled “Building safe communities: enhancing the business contribution”, was given by Professor Richard Parish, non-executive director of Public Health England (PHE) and the former chief executive of the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH), at the Crowne Plaza NEC, in Birmingham. It was organised by Shaun Davis – group director, safety, health and wellbeing at Royal Mail – and his team as their contribution to the European Week for Safety and Health at Work.
Professor Parish urged the audience, made up of business leaders and safety professionals, to go much further in promoting healthier lifestyles, not only through the workplace but by helping to tackle the scourge of accidents occurring outside of work as well. He also praised RoSPA for raising the profile of accident prevention with the launch of its public health campaign.
He said: “Historically, occupational safety and health has made a massive contribution to the health and wellbeing of Britain’s population. Yet there are still challenges, including tackling occupational cancer and respiratory disease, managing occupational road risk and reducing work-related musculoskeletal disorders and stress.
“For too long the huge spectre of more than 3 million serious accidental injuries annually has been overshadowed by other medical priorities, largely because they are not a problem addressed by clinical interventions. Yet the impact of accidental injury on our critically over-stretched NHS is crippling. RoSPA is to be congratulated for getting accident prevention back onto the public health agenda and showing how occupational safety and health professionals can make a major contribution to wider public health priorities.
“Accidents affect the young disproportionately, and as such are the biggest cause of Preventable Years of Life Lost (PrYLL). And because it is cheap, accident prevention is one of the most cost-effective public health measures we can invest in as a nation. It really is a no brainer.”
Professor Parish challenged the audience to consider their potential leadership roles in public health as a whole, from outreach work with local communities to supporting LASER (Learning about Safety by Experiencing Risk) centres.
Tom Mullarkey, chief executive of RoSPA, said: “We know that the huge problems of accidental injury and ill-health are growing. We see that health and safety is besieged on all sides by critics who cannot, or will not, engage with these serious issues and instead seek to deride this vital contribution to society; so it is time to come out fighting. Health and safety professionals need to reinvent their image and impact by taking their vast reservoir of knowledge on how to keep people safe and healthy, out into the community.”
The lecture is held in honour of Allan Holt OBE, who died aged 63 in 2007. He was a highly-respected health and safety practitioner who made an outstanding contribution to improving workplace health and safety in the UK and was group head of health and safety at Royal Mail. He was the first person to be awarded RoSPA’s Distinguished Service Award posthumously.
For more information on the lecture, visit www.rospa.com/occupational-safety/conferences-events/allan-st-john-holt-memorial-lecture
For information on Royal Mail’s health and safety activities, visit www.myroyalmail.com/working-royal-mail/health-and-safety
European Report sheds light on the key factors determining OSH practice
A new report from the Bilbao based European Agency – EU-OSHA describes the contextual and environmental factors that shape approaches to Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) management.
A follow-up study to ESENER, the report finds that working environments in EU Member States have a dynamic and changing nature. However, the differences between them are significant.
This insight helps to explain why EU work requirements are not applied in the workplace in a universal manner.
Classification, Labelling, Packaging update
Commission Regulation (EU) No 944/2013 of 2 October 2013 amending, for the purposes of its adaptation to technical and scientific progress, Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures.
See: OJ L261 03/10/13
New Risk Assessment Tool
The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has developed a range of tools and guidance to help small and medium sized businesses understand health and safety.
The advice will help businesses understand what they need to do and do not need to do to produce a risk assessment.
IRSST – Quebec, Canada new reports
Preparing Future Managers: Interaction between Human Resources Management and OSH
The aim of this study was to help future managers create dynamic environments that encourage an OSH culture and incorporate OSH measures in a sustainable organizational change process.
This study has also pedagogical objectives to:
- develop the competencies of future managers so they will understand OHS and HRM determinants
- help the diagnosis of an OHS problem
- develop insight and foresight with respect to the emergence of OHS issues.
New edition: Sampling Guide for Air Contaminants in the Workplace – 8th edition, version 8.1 updated
This guide describes the methods for quantifying the degree of exposure of workers in order to implement appropriate means of control. Version 8.1 of this guide is essentially an update of certain technical aspects that may have changed since its first publication in 2005.