The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is offering a birds-eye view of occupational safety with a high ropes course at Safety Health Expo 2009 in Birmingham next week.
RoSPA is hosting the 42-foot-high installation – with a “leap of faith” feature – to say that good health and safety is about enabling people to take risks, rather than preventing them from doing so.
The three-storey course (stand D84) will be open to visitors throughout Expo, which runs from Tuesday to Thursday (May 12 to 14) at the National Exhibition Centre. Among the core messages shared through the high ropes course will be that meeting challenges and working with hazards are important parts of life.
Tom Mullarkey, RoSPA chief executive, will be taking to the ropes at 11am on Tuesday to demonstrate that RoSPA walks the walk, as well as talks the talk when it comes to pragmatic risk management.
He said: “Health and safety is not about stopping people living life to the full. It’s about saving lives and preventing the misery which wholly avoidable tragedies can bring on individuals and their families.
“The high ropes course at Expo is a way of demonstrating one of our core guiding principles – that life should be as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible.
“As Europe’s biggest event for the occupational health and safety community, Expo is the ideal place to demonstrate to workers and their managers from the UK and beyond that good health and safety is about striking a balance between beneficial activity and keeping risk to a tolerable level.”
The high ropes course is one of two RoSPA stands at this year’s Expo, complementing its interactive display in the exhibitors’ hall at the NEC.
Adrian Newton, portfolio director for safety and building management at UBM Live, organisers of Safety Health Expo, said: “The RoSPA high ropes course is a fantastic addition to our extensive range of features at the show.
“The interactive feature will help us dispel the myth that health and safety means restriction and litigation. It is about having fun whilst managing risk – a concept we promote year in year out at Safety Health Expo.”
RoSPA’s other stand (L20) – an interactive and vivid red installation – will be manned by staff from various areas of RoSPA’s operations, including driver training and manual handling. They will offer practical advice and demonstrations to show visitors they can “take it as read” that RoSPA has the solution to all their health and safety needs. Visitors will also have the chance to win prizes by taking part in a “red-letter” competition.
Spaces are still available for the two conferences RoSPA is running at the NEC alongside Expo. On Wednesday, the Occupational Safety and Health at Work Congress, Staying Focused Under Pressure,will explore issues around sustaining good safety management during recession. And on Thursday, the Practical Transport Solutions conference will offer life saving advice on occupational road risk and workplace transport, the two largest causes of work-related accidents in the UK.
Furthermore there will be three days of RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards ceremonies taking place at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel, alongside Expo.
See www.rospa.com/events/ for details of RoSPA’s conferences and www.safety-health-expo.co.uk for information about Safety Health Expo, which will feature more than 250 exhibiting organisations.
