Health and safety in the energy sector
Health and safety
The energy sector may have inherent dangers, but it needn’t be dangerous. In recent years, improvements have been made in reducing the number of injuries, and the active involvement of Prospect reps has been key to this.
While progress has been made on safety, progress has not been so positive in addressing work-related health problems. Stress and fatigue are rife, driven by entrenched organisational factors.
Health and Safety Executive statistics show that the sector has one of the highest rates of occupational ill health across the whole economy. But Prospect, nationally and locally, is addressing the stubborn issues driving work-related ill health.
Join the Health and safety working group
If you are health and safety representative who is interested in finding out more about the working group, please email health and safety research officer Chris Warburton.
National HESAC and Powering Improvement
Callout to reps: your support is needed to push for health and safety consultations throughout the electricity supply industry.
Prospect is an active member of the tripartite National HESAC, along with the sector’s other unions, employers represented by the Energy Networks Association and Energy UK and the Health and Safety Executive. This provides the union with a forum to discuss concerns and how they should be addressed, and share information.
For over 20 years, National HESAC has run a health and safety strategy which aims to bring about continuous improvement in the management of health and safety in the electricity generation, transmission and distribution industries.
This strategy, Powering Improvement, focuses on four key overarching themes: leadership at all levels; improving competence; worker involvement; and corporate memory. It is overseen by a tripartite steering group, on which Prospect is represented.
The strategy is planned in five-year phases addressing priority areas and setting targets for the sector to achieve. Themes for the 2020-2025 phase include fatigue and health and safety culture. Powering Improvement’s aims are that by 2025, the industry will have reduced the rate of work-related sickness absence by 10% and reduced the number of days lost due to work-related mental ill health.
Fatigue and stress
Energy can be a high hazard sector. It is vital that anything which impedes people’s ability to make sound operational decisions is thoroughly assessed and carefully managed.
Fatigue is one such factor – it can result in slower reactions, reduced ability to process information and underestimation of risk, leading to errors and accidents, ill-health and injury.
Worryingly, Prospect research has shown that a large number of energy sector employees are struggling with fatigue, potentially putting themselves and their colleagues at risk. Forty percent of respondents to a recent survey said that at some point in the past year they had felt too fatigued to work safely. Of these, 40% did not feel comfortable telling their employer.
Prospect believes employers should adopt a risk-based approach to fatigue. Factors which can cause fatigue – including but not limited to long working hours – must be identified, understood, monitored and controlled. We will continue to engage with employers regarding fatigue management at a national level to press for industry-wide improvements.
Our reps’ guide to fatigue in the energy sector sets out the legal requirements on employers and provides advice and information to anyone looking to engage with their employer over the issue.
Stress and mental ill health
Poor management practices in the energy sector have led to a steady deterioration of working conditions. Employees face increasing workloads and long working hours, which have led to mounting problem with stress.
Recent Prospect research has highlighted the depth of the problem. Our survey revealed that more than one in three (34%) members working in the energy sector feel overwhelmed or highly stressed most of the time or every day. This rose to 41% of members working in electricity distribution.
While employers in the sector increasingly recognise the toll that stress has on staff health, safety, attendance, morale and service delivery, too few have implemented sustainable solutions that get to the root of this urgent problem.
We continue to press employers at a national and company level to implement tried and tested approaches to tackling stress, such as the HSE Management Standards.