How is health managed?
In 2000 the first five year Group Occupational Health Strategy was formulated, and approved by the Operations Committee. The primary objectives of this strategy were:
- Reduce significantly the number of new cases of occupational disease; and
- Establish appropriate risk assessment and risk management programmes.
In the discussions that preceded the strategy approval it became clear that a number of issues needed to be addressed to deliver these objectives. These were:
- Occupational health had a lower profile than safety.
- Given the long exposures required for many illnesses, incident investigations could require assessment controls over many years.
- Accurate reporting of new cases was proving difficult.
- Many sites were doing little or no workplace monitoring.
- Many site managers were leaving health matters to the medical centre or health and safety function. To change this, managers needed better information on medical and workplace monitoring.
To implement this strategy, two main programmes were instituted, the development of occupational health standards and the setting of performance targets.
Standards
The Rio Tinto Occupational Health standards were developed to provide an appropriate framework for risk assessment and risk management, the improvement in workplace monitoring and better management information on health issues. View our standards.
To support the standards a comprehensive set of guidance documents was developed and placed on our internal website. These guidance documents, Occupational Health Information and Guidance, (OHIGs) are continually being revised to keep them up to date with latest knowledge. The portal also contains a collaborative forum where managers can post best practice information or ask for advice from other sites. Questions regarding health standards for contractors, health aspects in purchasing criteria, pregnancy and occupational health issues, fitness for work testing, and assessment of noise exposure in truck cabs, are typical issues that have been discussed extensively in this forum.
A corporate led audit programme commenced in January 2005 to assess compliance with the standards. In the first 12 months of audits, conformance with the standards has been good. Full compliance has been difficult in the areas of:
- Risk assessment where our standards followed European practice. We need more training and this is being organised.
- Workplace monitoring where some sites had relied upon monitoring by regulators that was not sufficiently comprehensive. Sites are increasing their monitoring. In areas such as exposure to noise, this increased monitoring is leading to increased reporting and awareness of the need for controls.
- Fitness for work where there are no accepted international standards. We recognise that fatigue is a cause of workplace accidents and that controls are needed. Implementing the standards has led to a far greater awareness of the need to control fatigue. Increasingly, because of the safety implications, the fitness for work standard is being jointly audited by the health and safety auditors.
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