Making sure your business is fit for the future when it comes to managing the occupational health challenges faced by the workforce throughout our industry was the focus for the Health Vitals session hosted by the Safer Together Health Working Group at October’s Industry Safety Forum (ISF) in Perth.

Prior to the afternoon’s Industry Safety Forum, the WA/NT Health Working Group took delegates on a journey of their current, upcoming, and in-progress initiatives.

Following a welcome and brief history of our Health Working Groups from Abigail McPherson (Monadelphous), she handed over to Maria-Jose van Leeuwen (Shell) for a brief Safety Moment.

For the day’s first presentation, Melissa Day (Arrow Energy) advised delegates on the history, development of, and recent changes to the Safer Together Heat Stress Guideline, which has been designed to:

  1. Drive a consistent approach across industry to preventing heat stress.
  2. Provide Companies with effective risk control measures to implement in their own safe systems of work.
  3. Create a culture where personnel feel confident to speak up about heat stress.

Maria-Jose van Leeuwen and Ellary Broun (Woodside), returned for a two-part presentation on a project ‘in-development’, ‘Management of Fatigue in the Workplace’.

The development of a fatigue-related Guideline is needed:

  • As fatigue is one of the top health risks in industry,
  • As industry needs support with additional guidance, information, and materials to assist with development of a Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) by applying a more standardised approach,
  • As industry needs practical awareness tools on fatigue-mitigation measures available to support workforce awareness on an industry level, and
  • To create an intuitive ‘one stop shop’ to assist members with finding fatigue-related materials and information.

Another Health Working Group in-progress project presentation followed, our On-Site Accommodation Psychological Health and Safety Guideline from Melissa Day (Arrow Energy) – a development in response to the need for safeguarding individuals residing at camps.

Melissa took delegates on a journey of the development of the Guideline; specifically, the in-scope and out-of-scope considerations, the target audience, types of accommodation considered, and a projected timeline for release.

The final presentation of the morning, ‘Future Topics for Consideration’ from Anna MacFarlane (INPEX) looked to future projects for the Health Working Group.

Anna closed by thanking delegates for their attendance and reminding them of the valuable resources available on the Safer Together website.

Our Health Working Group is actively recruiting new members; if you wish to join the group, or if you have any questions about any of the above initiatives, email:  [email protected].