If you’ve been sweltering in the recent heatwave, spare a thought for Londoners in the summer of 1858 enduring not just 35-degree heat, but the stench of raw sewage emanating from the River Thames. During the mid-1800s, London’s dirty water was the source of three cholera epidemics claiming over 30,000 lives, but it was ‘The Great Stink’ which finally prompted action; the overwhelming smell through an open window in the Houses of Parliament led Disraeli and other MPs to flee from their chambers. That same year Parliament passed a bill to create a unified sewage system in the capital.
Engineering mastermind and public health visionary, Sir Joseph Bazalgette, had a £3million budget to construct an 82-mile network of underground brick main sewers and 1,100 miles of street sewers to intercept the raw sewage which flowed through the streets of London and into old Father Thames. Thousands of labourers dug out the tunnels by hand and the demand for workers drove up bricklayers’ wages to the princely sum of six shillings.
Fast forward 160 years and London’s population has more than tripled, putting pressure on the Victorian infrastructure, and with the resulting overflow polluting the river. In 2015, in a project echoing the ambition and scale of Bazalgette’s vision, Tideway embarked on a £4.3billion project to intercept, store and transfer sewage away from the Thames and to a sewage works in east London.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel is one of the UK’s largest and most ambitious water infrastructure projects, employing 4,000 workers directly and around 5,000 more through its supply chain. Tideway looked to projects on a similar scale to assess how they could make it as safe as it possibly could be.
Tideway chief Technical Officer Roger Bailey has said:
“Even if we achieved what was then a good standard of health and safety, we could expect 200 life-changing injuries, 150 serious injuries and at least two deaths. This wasn’t acceptable.”
Tideway’s health and safety ambitions matched the scale and investment of the project. A specific objective was to avoid the spike in incidents often seen during the mobilisation stage of major projects. Tideway were looking for an innovative approach which would address the familiarity fatigue associated with more conventional induction programmes.
Active Training Team (ATT) worked with Tideway to create the Employer’s Project Induction Centre (EPIC) in Vauxhall. Everyone employed on the project – from the Chief Executive to the operatives on the ground to the back-office staff – attends the immersive, multi-media one-day programme. Participants witness the causes and consequences of a fatal incident on a site, engaging with those involved at a more visceral level than in typical health and safety training.
The focus is on ensuring workers understand the importance of their role in challenging unsafe behaviour or conditions and are empowered to speak up if they think something isn’t right. A series of active learning workshops equips them with the practical communication tools to feel confident doing so.
Over 21,000 workers on the Tideway project have completed the EPIC induction to date. In feedback, participants consistently report that they find EPIC more engaging and memorable than their previous experiences. Evaluation shows that 95 per cent of participants feel more confident in challenging poor health and safety after attending EPIC.
Steve Hails, Tideway’s Director of Business Services & Health, Safety and Wellbeing has said:
“Traditionally, inductions have been rather dull, transactional affairs – generally via PowerPoint presentations and the continual repetition of site requirements or industry standards. EPIC is different.
“Every attendee is immediately immersed in the experience and all play an active part throughout the day. EPIC focuses on behaviours and our expectations for every individual working on Tideway – starting on day one.
“Active involvement and participation is a key part of successful completion of the induction day. EPIC is unique and sets a new benchmark for industry. It is our intention that EPIC becomes the basis of future induction programmes.”
As the ‘Super Sewer’ project has progressed, EPIC has been adapted to fit the context of the different stages of work being carried out. EPIC Logistics was aimed at HGV drivers and the facility has become a JAUPT-approved driver CPC training centre. It’s estimated that by its conclusion, the project will involve 140,000 lorry trips, but to-date there have been no deaths or serious injuries, with an ‘accident frequency rate’ far lower than projects of a similar scale.
The latest incarnation of EPIC leads participants through a situation where decisions based on conflicting priorities, demands from management and poor communication lead to safety being compromised during a lifting operation into a 40-metre shaft with catastrophic results.
According to the communication-human information processing (C-HIP) model, safety communication must pass through a number of stages if it is to have a positive impact on behaviour: source; channel; attention; comprehension; attitudes and beliefs; motivation and behaviour. If messages are blocked at any of these stages, their impact on safety behaviour becomes negligible. The EPIC narrative addresses each of these and how the blockage has incurred, then gives participants the opportunity to actively improve those communications to secure a different outcome.
Longitudinal research by Loughborough University describes EPIC as ‘an excellent example of Tideway’s “transformational” approach to OSH and has been very well received’ which provides important lessons for the construction industry and OSH practitioners in other sectors. Analysis of feedback from 530 EPIC participants over a three-month period and an online survey of mainly office-based staff, found responses overwhelmingly positive with people taking away three key lessons from the day: personal responsibility for safety; communication skills; and the importance of safety.
Judges of the Construction News Award for Training Excellence described EPIC as a ‘game-changer’, adding, ‘Tideway’s training is setting new benchmarks and represents a fantastic approach that will change the industry.’
The scope and the ambition of the Tideway project demanded an approach to workers’ health, safety and wellbeing that was as innovative and radical as Bazalgette’s ideas in the 19th century. The outcomes speak for themselves, but the evidence also demonstrates that it is possible to equip workers with the autonomy and skills to act to ensure the safety and wellbeing of themselves and others. This creates a more profound and autonomous culture than just giving people a tick list of rules to follow, which inevitably without that sense of responsibility, people can easily neglect if under pressure.
Thanks to the Tideway EPIC leading the way, ATT has now been able to establish safety leadership centres for other clients in construction but also in the rail and renewables sectors. This proves that the ‘EPIC approach’, as conceived by ATT, is relevant across all industries and represents an enduring legacy for the Tideway project. There’s something for everyone to learn and benefit from by attending our programmes.
Active Training Team (ATT) has moved north of the border with the opening of the latest safety leadership centre in Perth, the first of its kind in Scotland. The Faskally Safety Leadership Centre represents a £2.5million investment by energy...
We’re celebrating World Storytelling Day exploring how stories can help us to connect with others, embed learning and be a great mechanism to develop new skills.
Now in its seventeenth year, National Apprenticeship Week is the annual celebration of the achievements and ambitions of apprentices and showcases the benefits of apprenticeships for businesses and the wider economy. Jayne Phenton shares her...