Worksafe

The rail industry doesn’t Worksafeexpect any employee to work in an unsafe manner to achieve results. If you think something is unsafe, then stop work. You should never feel that you have to do something if you believe it’s unsafe, Wherever you work, whether you’re trackside, in an office or visiting a site; if you have concerns about safety the Worksafe procedure has existed since 2009 giving you the right to stop work and have the situation assessed in a fair way.

It was updated in 2020, with additional requirements added. A briefing, and the links to updated standard are below.
Worksafe Procedure (please note Network rail link only)

External suppliers standards site

WorkSafe briefing

If you’re asked to undertake a task without the required training, equipment or personal protective equipment, or if there is no safe system of work then you can invoke the Worksafe procedure and prevent a potential accident. You can expect support from your manager – to listen, evaluate and agree an action with you. How Worksafe works:

  1. Stop work, move to a position of safety, and immediately contact the person in charge, explaining that you have invoked the Worksafe procedure and explain why you have stopped work.
  2. The person in charge shall, in discussion with the employee, make an assessment of the situation and determine the course of action required.
  3. An agreement should be reached that there has been a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the task, the system of work is safe and that the work can be restarted.

If no agreement can be reached, the work will not be restarted and the person in charge would consult their manager to agree when the work can be made safe, when staff can return and assign them to other work in the meantime.

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