Personal-Injury-Prevention-Building-A-Safety-Culture FINAL

[MUSIC PLAYING] To work effectively ships and their crews must work safely. Developing a safety culture will prevent personal injuries on-board ships. It's not only the safe and smart way to operate, it's also mandatory. Running a safe ship is important to those who own it, to those who man it, and to those who entrust it with their cargo. It's also an important new emphasis of the revised STCW convention and the ISM code. Specifically the ISM code requires ship owners and managers to develop a safety management system that will provide for safe practices and ship operation, establish safeguards against risk, and continuously improve safety management skills. In this program, we will feature the insight and commentary of author Richard Bracken, whose book Personal Injury Prevention, A Guide To Good Practice sets out the basic steps in building a true safety culture on-board ship. The worst way to do it is just to put a set of manuals on-board the ship and say, follow these procedures and everything will be fine. Because take it from me, it won't be. What it really is about is giving the people on the ship the ownership of the procedures. Let them have a part of it when you're developing the procedures. Go around the ship with them, take the people on board and take them to show you what safe practice is. It's an evolving process. Turn it on by flipping this switch here. We'll identify the six items of personal protective equipment recommended for individual protection. We will discuss the way ships could prevent accidents and injuries before they happen. And we'll see examples of the safe use of on-board tools and equipment. How serious is the business of personal injury prevention? P&I clubs estimate that after cargo claims, personal injury and illness claims are their second largest category of claims registered, accounting for more than a third of the total. To dramatize the seriousness of this issue we're going to introduce you to a couple of characters that are not quite so serious, to contrast the good and the bad. Naw, safety, schmafety. Come on. No element of personal injury prevention is as crucial as what happens before the work even begins, work planning. So if you got any questions about what you're supposed to be doing come see me 'cause it's all up here. I've done this 100 times before. I'll tell you, I've been on this ship and ships like it for years. No matter how many times you've done it, you still need to plan it. What's the plan? Well I'll tell you what, you know what to do today? Well, am I going to paint, am I going to sand, what am I going to do? Well then you're coming with me, I'll put you to work. All right. Forget this planning nonsense. It's all up here. But as you know, last time you had a problem-- Effective planning starts at the top. The daily work planning meeting attended by senior officers, the ship board safety officer, and the bosun assigns roles and responsibilities. The aim of the planning team is to organize the work before doing the work, with safety firmly in mind. But I just want to make sure that all the guys are wearing either ear plugs or the ear muffs. That's the biggest message about work planning is, it's the stepping back. What are we going to do? What tasks are we going to undertake? What factors have we got to consider? Daily work planning involves job allocation, taking into account individual skills, equipment needs, interdepartmental coordination, job procedures, and preparing a daily work plan. When is the [INAUDIBLE] going to be on? Yeah. What? I polished the floor. What? I'm polishing the deck. What? One of the very best reasons for planning your work ahead of time is how hard it is to plan it on the spot. Lack of planning allows room for sloppiness, confusion, accidents, and of course injuries. Aaaagh [BIRDS CHIRPING] --a well planed way. A good crew follows the daily work planning meeting with a more detailed departmental meeting to go over specifics. --fuel pumps off and you have some kind of a pan underneath to catch all the excess fuel and so forth. The departmental meeting deals in detail with correct procedures, staff, and safety concerns. And in the case of work that might be especially hazardous, many ships use the permit to work system. This system requires written procedures and authorization for potentially hazardous tasks like hot work, electrical maintenance, work aloft or over-side, an entry into enclosed spaces. Essentially this switchboard will kill you. If we open this panel put our hands in there, we'll just going to come back and find out where do we take the body. You don't get second chances with 440 volt power systems. So that's a classic environment where I would want to see a permit to work system. Work planning and permit to work systems are based on good communication, team input, and the use of daily work plans and written authorizations. A few minutes spent planning add focus and discipline to the work that follows. It's a structured way of doing it, and it makes the people at the top actually step back and think about the job as well. Instead of the chief engineer just saying, OK boys, go down and work on the main switchboard, and then going off and doing something else, it focuses his mind, and thus everybody else in his team, that we've got to take into account the true safety implications. Personal injury prevention begins with personal protective equipment. In this segment, we'll talk about safety gear and how and when to use it. Are you ready? Ready, OK, I'm going to go get my safety equipment, I'm going to get my gloves. You don't need gloves. What about my coveralls? You don't need coveralls. I'm going to need my safety goggles. No goggles. What about my helmet? Nah, safety schmafety. Come on. [RRRINNGG] Well, what are you waiting for? We're all familiar with personal protective equipment, sometimes too familiar. We often take it for granted or use it improperly. In personal protective equipment, PPE, there are six absolute essentials, boilersuits or coveralls, steel toe capped safety shoes, safety helmets or hard hats, ear protection, gloves, and goggles. It's not enough to simply say, here is a boilersuit and a hard hat, go away and wear it. There's a way to wear these things, and there's a way that you could jeopardize your safety by thinking you're wearing equipment that's going to help you, and actually it could be doing you more harm than good. Boilersuits provide protection from dirt, oils, and potential hazards, and at the very least they keep clothing clean and protected. They should be fastened at the neck and wrists, and be washed and repaired when they become dirty or damaged. Boilersuits should be worn at all times when working outside the living areas of the accommodation. Safety shoes must have steel toe caps for protection from impact injuries, have anti-slip soles, and be oil and chemical resistant in case of spills. Use steel toe rubber boots for wet work. Safety shoes should be worn any time you're working outside the accommodation, including work in galleys, stores, and refrigeration spaces. Safety helmets should be worn whenever you're working outside the accommodation. Some examples include during mooring, at emergency stations, during storing and lifting operations, cargo and bunkering operations, and for all engine room maintenance. But whenever you're on the job a safety helmet is vital. It's a physical hard hat, there's the inlaid lining and structure of the hat. We've got heavy mounted ear defenders, chin straps, all these parts of it, alone without the webbing it's a hazard. It's no different to just wearing a piece of plastic on top of your head. Safety helmets provide personal protection from bumps, knocks, and falling objects. It's not just the plastic, it's the webbing too. Ear protection should always be worn near loud machinery, in engine rooms, hydraulic rooms, fan and pump rooms, and compressor, refrigeration, and cranes spaces. As a rule of thumb, if you can't converse normally, like in this environment, then you should be wearing ear protection. One of the most common injuries in the maritime industry is hearing loss. The solution is ear protection, preferably built into the safety helmet itself. Leather palm gloves are good for general duty work around the ship. Use approved rubber gloves when working with chemicals, heat resistant gloves or gauntlets for hot work, and approved insulated rubber gloves for electrical work. Gloves should be worn whenever their use will help prevent injury. Remember, there are different types of gloves suitable for different tasks. Goggles, or other approved eye protection, is essential when operating machine tools, handling chemicals, welding, pressure washing, grinding, chipping and blasting. Approved eye protection is mandatory whenever there's a risk of injury to the eyes. Be aware that there are hazards in places you might not be looking for them, such as mooring and anchoring operations. To review then, there are six items of personal protective equipment that should be mandatory, boilersuits, steel toe cap safety shoes, safety helmets, ear protection, gloves, and goggles. There's also plenty of specialized safety equipment you should be familiar with and know how to use as the job at hand requires. Including safety harnesses and belts, flotation aids, heat resistant clothing, dust masks and respirators, fire suits, and chemical suits. Immediately we can see that they're telling us hard hats is a priority for everyone. We're wearing hard hats here. We want people wearing gloves, and we want people wearing safety foot ware, anti-slip soles, steel toe caps, protective foot ware. Wearing personal protective equipment is a good start, but communicating and sharing information about safety will actually help you anticipate and prevent accidents and injuries before they occur. Going beyond simple protection is called building a safety culture. That's next. Safety isn't simply a set of rules and regulations, or even the equipment we just looked at, it's a continuous process where we look to learn and improve. We call it building a safety culture, and it's a far cry from business as usual and the way things used to be. You think you've got things, aw mate, I'll tell you, I've done a lot harder work than this ship. I've had waves crashing against the deck, 30 to 40 feet high. You won't be able to change anything on-board ship, unless you can change individual behaviors, and that may take some work. So you've got it easy, this is an easy life for you. You have never had it easier than this. I've worked hard all me life. You're wrong The basis for any safety culture is individual responsibility and accountability, personal hygiene, cleanliness, pride in yourself and your ship. Most mariners will tell you there's a relationship between good housekeeping on-board ship and ship safety. Consider this fact, 45% of all personal injuries on-board ship are simple slips and falls. Building a safety culture requires a team effort. With each and every individual officer or crewman working towards the same goal. It's not do this way and everything will be OK. If somebody, a junior officer, comes up to you, or a crew member comes up to you and says, I think we could help if we changed it this way, don't dismiss it out of hand. The procedures say this is what we do, listen to what they're saying, because these guys do it every day of their working life. And they probably know a damn sight more about it, than we do just writing down rules. A safety culture begins with commitment from the very top of the shipping organization. It's a four step process of continuous improvement and corrective action driven by the senior officers and the designated safety officer. --know make sure when you're chipping at it-- Step one is identifying the size of the problem. Talk about safety, near misses, accidents, hazards. Work together to get a sense of what works and what doesn't. However you do that, whether you do it in terms of lost time injuries, whether you do in terms of accidents on-board ship, whatever method you use, you have to establish what size of problem you have and what particular problems you're facing. Step two is providing the correct equipment and training. We've identified the correct personal protective equipment. Get it, learn it, and use it. It's not just give them the equipment and say, go away and wear this equipment. It's showing people how to wear it, when to use it, when is the right place for a certain type of glove, or when should you wear your ear defenders. Educating people, education and training has to be the key. Step three is making safety a priority. Actions speak louder than words. When safety is a priority aboard ship the culture will change. It becomes a natural progression. It's not, stop, what should I think about safety, you know, what factors should I now consider? After a while it just becomes second nature, it's automatic. Step four is developing a reporting system. Continuous improvement is based on good communication, sorting out what works and what doesn't and taking corrective action. It's getting a picture of what's happening on board the ship, so a near miss, accident reporting. An accident is any unforeseen incident, it doesn't necessarily result in injury. So there's various stages, there's the near miss, there's the accident, there's the injury, and still far too often, fatality. Safety is everybody's concern, every day. It begins with each of us individually, yet it affects the welfare of all of us. Building a safety culture saves lives and saves property. It begins with good work planning, and the proper use of personal protective equipment. If you're conscious of safety, you'll improve working conditions and your whole ship will benefit. [MUSIC PLAYING]