Together in Safety - The Golden Safety Rules
The Together in Safety Coalition is a unique non-regulatory consortium with representation from across the entire shipping industry working as one united team. This includes ship owners and operators, industry organisations, and the many supporting groups from P&I insurance companies to classification societies, and service providers. From the largest to the smallest, all such groups are involved in Together in Safety, as everyone has an important role to play.
With shipping being one of the most hazardous industries in the world, Together in Safety provides the opportunity to dramatically improve safety performance across every shipping sector.
According to published statistics, shipping industry fatalities have increased by 10% year on year over the last five years. Together in Safety was formed to reverse this trend with the aspiration to assist the industry improve the current safety performance.
Shipping industry fatalities have increased by 10% year on year over the last five years
Focused on Leadership, Incident Prevention, and Wellbeing & Care, the Together in Safety Coalition has identified 14 repeat major incidents that result in 80% of the fatalities, and also having environmental impact and major asset damage. We need to be clear that these are not “accidents”, but instead repeat incident types that are regularly occurring, and could and should, have been avoided.
The Golden Safety Rules were derived from these 14 major incident types. The Rules provide easy access to all, from senior management to front line personnel, providing insight to the risk, prompting a pause and quick risk assessment, encouraging individuals not to rush and result in potential incidents.
The Golden Safety Rules enable operators to engage with a single Rule at a time, rather than setting the expectation that all are consumed at once. There is a focus on ease of understanding such that everyone can apply them in their everyday work.
Promoting the responsibility of managing one’s own safety, the Rules are written in a context that forms a personal commitment of “I will always…”, “I will never…”.
The Golden Safety Rules identify industry good practice, as determined by the Together in Safety Coalition, to assist the industry to identify opportunities to mitigate the consequences associated with the ten identified risks.
The ten Golden Safety Rules will preserve lives and reduce the frequency of fatal incidents:
1) Stop
Pause operations and assess safety where concerns arise.
2) Enclosed space entry
Only enter an enclosed space if it has been ventilated and the atmosphere confirmed safe.
3) Fall prevention
Always protect yourself from falling when working at height or during personnel transfer.
4) Energy isolation
Verify isolation before working with stored energy and invisible hazards (eg, electricity, pressure)
5) Working over water/Access to vessels
When outside of ships rails, always wear a personal floatation device.
6) Line of fire
Ensure yourself and others are positioned away from suspended loads, stored pressure, moving machinery and snap back areas.
7) Navigation
Adhere to collision regulations, supplement navigation aids with visual/manual checks, plan and execute the passage plan and avoid distractions and fatigue.
8) Lifeboats
Ensure own and others’ safety during maintenance and testing of lifeboats.
9) Hot work
Ensure spaces are free of flammable and materials and gasses before working where flame is used, or where sparks might be produced.
10) Distraction
Distractions can have disastrous effects on safety vigilance. It is essential there are no distractions which impede your focus on your safety duties.
Summary
While focused on the shipping industry, there is clearly cross relevance in terms of approach taken to address the identified safety challenges, and indeed, several of the ten Golden Safety Rules are relevant to many other industrial sectors.
“Working together, we can improve the shipping industry the world over, for every vessel, for every company, for every seafarer, and for every family member and their children.”
Together in Safety is a not-for-profit virtual safety partner for the shipping industry. The Coalition represents a hugely influential group of global leaders in the shipping industry. The collective wealth of knowledge, expertise and experience should not be underestimated in the context of opportunities to drive better practices throughout the industry. All guidance developed by the coalition is available free of charge on the Together in Safety website and readers are encouraged to engage with the valuable content.
Dr Grahaeme Henderson OBE
