Health & Safety 2013

Our 9th Annual Health and Safety conference in Sheffield was attended by 300 delegates and gained positive feedback from our sponsors, exhibitors and delegates alike.

The buzz and active networking throughout the conference showed first-hand the thirst for safety knowledge and a passion and desire to learn and share our safety values through the experiences we have gained in this exciting industry.

The event can only happen thanks to the generous support of our sponsors and exhibitors. So our sincere thanks go out to PMSS, our Core Sponsor and also to RES and ARMSA Consulting.

The keynote addresses left the conference in no doubt about the challenges we face — but above the opportunities that exists for us all to drive the safety agenda. Maria McCaffery, Chief Executive of RenewableUK set the scene by acknowledging the contributions of all health and safety professionals who continue to make the UK a world leader in this sector, as a safe and responsible jurisdiction in which to do business — and reflecting on a core point “..that, with good health and safety procedures, we increase the chance of delivering projects on time and on budget. Even minor incidents can lead to major delays which can have a huge financial impact”.

Subash Ludhra, immediate past President of IOSH, the world's biggest professional health and safety membership organisation, in his keynote address gave an excellent presentation setting out the role of IOSH and the current health and safety agenda in the UK. He also identified some key areas where we should all focus our attention including, board/senior management commitment, competence, and cultural and motivational issues.

Nick Chivers, PMSS Director of Quality, Safety, Health and Environment in the Core Sponsor’s address provided some real industry insight. In addition, on reflecting where we had come from, he set sometargets for us all to look at achieving including:

• learn from where we’ve come from — our successes as well as failures
• get the basics right - safe and successful projects are about competent people
• more early focus on operations and operability from a H&S perspective
• earn the trust of the regulators and the confidence of investors.

We will shortly be announcing the date and venue for Health & Safety 2014. However we still welcome any comments about how we can improve the event so feel free to contact our health and safety or events teams.