The Network Rail Health & Safety Management System
The Health & Safety Management System (H&SMS) describes the framework and arrangements in place to deliver our health and safety objectives and provides a guide to our specific arrangements for controlling health and safety risks.
The health and safety of our employees and others affected by our activities is assured through the effective design, construction, maintenance and operation of the network. The H&SMS therefore depends on, and is part of, the overall company management system and is underpinned by company standards, specifications and procedures.
Overview of the H&SMS
The H&SMS is modelled on the structure shown below which provides for thorough understanding of health and safety risks; planning and implementation of effective controls; measurement of results to inform continuous learning and improvement, driven by strong and committed leadership at every level of the organisation.
Leading
Leadership creates the vision, sets the strategic direction and inspires people to follow. Managers at all levels are required to demonstrate clear commitment to health and safety, promote the right attitudes and behaviours throughout the workforce and drive continuous improvement. Every manager is accountable for the health and safety performance of their own team. Managers build fully engaged teams where everyone understands their roles, objectives and processes, has sufficient resources, materials, equipment and information, is fit and competent and has appropriate feedback on performance.
Understanding Risk
A thorough understanding of health and safety risks is essential in managing our risks effectively. We adopt a standardised approach to identify, evaluate and understand our health and safety risks, making appropriate use of industry wide risk models and specialist tools and techniques. We apply standard safety decision criteria to provide consistency in the application of measures to reduce risks so far as is reasonably practicable (SFAIRP).
Implementing Controls
Arrangements for the effective control of risks are defined in the company standards, specifications and procedures. This includes the arrangements for effective design, construction, maintenance and operation of the network and specific arrangements for control of health and safety risks.
Measuring
We measure compliance with and the effectiveness of our health and safety management arrangements using a wide variety of sources and techniques. Measurement is based on both leading indicators, which focus on control activities, and lagging indicators based on safety performance outputs covering both personal and system safety. Measurement data is assessed and analysed to produce safety intelligence for the business.
Learning
We use the knowledge derived from our measurement activities, combined with planned and targeted research and external information sources, to review the effectiveness of our health and safety management arrangements and drive continuous improvement. This deepens our understanding of risk and informs the development of systems and controls based on a philosophy of “predict and prevent”.