Safety first

Safe and sound: CA Lt-Gen Peter Leahy at the ArmySAFE launch. Photo by Cpl Simone Liebelt

Top 10 safety issues in order of fatalities 1. Vehicle accidents 2. Self harm 3. Sport and PT injuries 4. Falls 5. Weapons / ammunition 6. Heal illness 7. Aircraft accidents 8. Stress 9. Hazardous materials 10. Lifting injures

By Cpl Damian Shovell

THE largest gathering of senior Army leaders in modern times was summoned to Canberra by CA Lt-Gen Peter Leahy to discuss only one thing – Occupational Health and Safety.

The objective of the gathering was to launch Army’s new safety management system, ArmySAFE, and LT-Gen Leahy called on all Army personnel to have the courage to stop, to identify and to report unsafe behaviour.

“We have a strong heritage of looking after our mates, and improving our safety performance maintains this proud tradition,” he said.

In a sea of red tabs, more than 160 senior leaders gathered at the May 20 conference, including every major-general, more than 30 brigadiers and 80 colonels, unit commanders and their RSMs. Lt-Gen Leahy emphasised the key role played by Army’s senior leaders and their OH&S responsibilities.

His objective was to eliminate the “unnecessary loss of people through injury and illness” and he was unambiguous in his address.

“It is time to review what we have been doing, reinforce what is right and re-think what needs to be improved ... to guard the wellbeing of the men and women who serve in the Australian Army,” he said.

Lt-Gen Leahy set measurable performance targets for his commanders and said he expected an annual 10 per cent reduction in the number of injuries, the average time lost per injury, and in the number of personnel medically discharged.

Director Technical Regulation- Army Col Brett Billett said ArmySAFE represented a systematic approach to safety management and would focus on improved reporting, including near-miss incidents, and also address the top 10 OH&S issues affecting Army.

“We want to empower soldiers to report incidents, we want to adjust culture so we don’t blame people when things go wrong. We recognise that sometimes we have problems with our training, equipment or systems, we need to identify and fix these problems,” he said.

Presentations on ArmySAFE will soon be given at unit level and an improved DRN reporting system with an abbreviated AC563 will be online in August to make reporting easier.

Col Billett said ArmySAFE included 87 new establishment positions, comprising 22 full-time military and 20 APS positions, and 45 part-time military positions to establish the ArmySAFE Advisor Service. The new presence would be immediately felt once OH&S risk managers arrived in all commands starting in January 2006. All the new positions should be filled by 2008.

“Every Army formation and some high risk units will have a dedicated OH&S risk manager. There will be OH&S management personnel at all functional command headquarters and a new Directorate of Occupational Health and Safety will be established within AHQ,” Col Billett said.

“Everybody in the Army, from officers to soldiers, will now get comprehensive training on OH&S. It will be embedded into every course we do, from recruit training to pre-command courses for lieutenant colonels, and every course in between.”

He emphasised that ArmySAFE was all about increasing capability and ensuring that we maximise our combat power by minimising nonbattle casualties.

“At the end of the day we still need to develop and maintain our soldierly skills as we have always done, but we must also recognise the risks we expose ourselves to in training and manage those risks effectively in order to reduce the number of avoidable accidents,” he said.

“We have to put in place processes that maximise safety while being conscious of our operational capabilities in the field, when we’re undergoing training, in barracks and when we’re on operations.”