Managing H&S risk during NHS strikes
Has anyone had experience of works being reduced / canceled due to lack of medical cover?
Last week I attended a Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV) HS2 site to conduct a bridge assessment. The assessment was being conducted during the midst of the ambulance strikes which included the local ambulance trust. In receiving the morning brief and emergency procedure / actions on injury briefing it was mentioned twice that the ‘immediate action’ on injury was to call 999 and request an ambulance. When I questioned if high risk activities had been stopped for the day due to the strikes I saw a moment of panic on the on the BBVs engineering staffs faces who, after conferring amongst themselves stated ‘that’s probably an oversight and we will review that now’.
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
This and the myriad other ‘please don’t unless you have to’ requests that seem to be made with increasing frequency do start to raise questions around what level of service provision is ‘normal’. I see two intersting lines of thought: One regarding what defines the extent to which impact increases if a risk marerialises, that is to say does defining hazzards as low, medium and high possiblility of materialising also define the extent to which their effect would be exacerbated by a lack of service. The other is where do the costs incurred with either providing alternatives to fill a service provision gap or delaying works until their is adequate provison sit? Is it force majeure; I don’t think it is…