Spotlight: keeping troops fighting fit
Over 200 British service personnel have died in Afghanistan
since 2001. Of these, 21 have died in the past month.
Connect talks to Roger Moore, Deputy Chief Environment and
Safety Officer for the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, about what
lessons can be learnt from deaths and injuries in operations and
training…
Roger said:
“British troops are continuing to conduct
fierce fighting against a determined enemy in Afghanistan and sadly
some are losing their lives and others are being badly injured. So
now isn’t a time to lose personnel through avoidable accidents.
Keeping our troops as safe as reasonably practicable, not only from
enemy action but also from day to day hazards, is of key
importance. We therefore try hard to understand why accidents
happen, learn lessons and improve the way we work in order to avoid
future tragic deaths and injuries.”
The MoD is subject to UK health and safety legislation, so the
1974 Health and Safety at Work Act applies. But because the MoD is
a Crown body, the HSE can’t prosecute.
The substitute for the inability to prosecute is an
administrative mechanism called a Crown Censure. Roger said:
“This allows the HSE to bring formal Censure
proceedings if we’re seen to have broken what would have been law
in a normal context.”
In the past 10 years there has been on average one Crown Censure
a year. These can range from accidents on night exercises to
weapons and diver training.
In 2005, the MoD received a Crown Censure following the death of
a Royal Marine recruit. He was shot during training in Lympstone,
Devon, when a rifle was accidently loaded with live ammunition
instead of blanks. Roger said:
“The findings showed that there wasn’t an
adequate risk assessment for this exercise and some of the key
personnel weren’t sufficiently trained. The ammunition could have
also been marked more clearly. There were a number of failures, but
the HSE charged the MoD under Section 2.1 of the Health and Safety
at Work Act.
“On their own, the individual failures might
not necessarily have caused a problem, but together they resulted
in the death of a recruit.”
Roger gets involved in the preparation for, and attends, each
Censure to provide central co-ordination. With every case, Roger
and his team will look at what happened and how it happened before
putting submissions to the Ministry’s senior safety board with the
lessons learnt.
These lessons are then passed to the appropriate service (Army,
Navy or Air Force) to make sure they’re aware of these findings
when updating work arrangements and planning for future training
exercises.
“We also take recommendations from coroners.
Take for example a coroner’s inquest into the death of a serviceman
in January. While on duty, the bus he was travelling in left the
road and overturned on the Trans Canada Highway, and he wasn’t
wearing a seatbelt. The coroner in a Rule 43 letter (the rule that
deals with learning lessons to prevent deaths) stated that the MoD
should make sure soldiers wear seatbelts under those
circumstances.
Road traffic accidents are a major cause of
deaths and serious injuries, and a great deal of effort,
particularly by the Army, has gone into raising awareness. They
have produced award-winning films aimed at young soldiers. The
Defence Road Safety Committee will reinforce the message about
seatbelts in road safety campaigns again this year.
“In operational areas the issue of seatbelts
is not as straightforward, as some troops feel uncomfortable about
being so restricted. If they come under enemy fire, they may want
to be able to escape their vehicle as quickly as possible.
Behavioural and psychological elements play a key part in safety,
and it’s about balancing people’s perceptions of risk from one
hazard to another.
“Understanding of safety and risk is built in
from the beginning of training, although it might not use the
language of the safety practitioner. Recruits are exposed to
hazards as their training progresses. It’s important they’re not
injuring themselves through silly and avoidable accidents.
”Safety in operational theatres is in many
ways similar to that in the UK. Basic disciplines ensure that
fighting capability is not impaired, including good food hygiene,
attention to hydration to avoid heat exhaustion, use of personal
protective equipment to avoid crushing and lacerations, sensible
working at height and manual handling. Together these will underpin
the maintenance of an effective fighting force.”
In his day-to-day job, Roger can deal with people from nuclear
power plants, the safe movement of high volumes of explosives, the
storage of fuels and gases and the safety of aircraft and
ships.
“Many corporate organisations will have one
of these areas to deal with, but not necessarily all of them, and
they might not have to understand the differences and nuances of
approach.”
Currently, Roger is working with an Army Lieutenant Colonel in
his team on research into accident investigation, looking at what
the different approaches are in the various areas of the MoD.
They’re pulling together information not necessarily to change what
people are doing, but to gain best practice and feed that across to
other areas.
“This is an ongoing project and we hope it’ll
improve the practice of different people.
“Health and safety is always taken seriously,
particularly with the Crown Censures. The senior members of the
MoD, who might need to represent a particular department, certainly
don’t feel comfortable sitting in the same room as bereaved
relatives who all want to know why and how their loved one was
killed.”
Factfile:
- Roger Moore is a Chartered Member of IOSH
- The MoD is the highest level military headquarters in the UK,
providing political control of all military operations
Links:
MOD