A HEALTHLY WORKFORCE IN A SAFE WORKPLACE
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY & HEALTH DIVISION
YEAR IN REVIEW 2015
A HEALTHLY WORKFORCE IN A SAFE WORKPLACE
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY & HEALTH DIVISION
YEAR IN REVIEW 2015
To encourage businesses to adopt good WSH practices and develop a pervasive WSH culture, it is important they recognise that incorporating WSH into their workplaces will enhance business competitiveness, create a good corporate image, and promote productivity and efficiency. It is also important that the workforce embrace WSH as a fundamental aspect to their daily work.
At the same time, exemplary businesses and workers should be recognised for demonstrating good WSH practices and behaviour and have them share their experiences with the industry to encourage cross-learning and facilitate an environment of continuous improvement.
There have been many outreach and engagement programmes in 2015 to promote the benefits of WSH and to share the latest in WSH developments. Conventions, seminars, forums and clinics are some of the few that were organised.
WSH FORUM FOR CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
About 200 representatives from the construction industry gathered on 4 February 2015 for a WSH Forum titled “Learnings from Inspections and Investigations”. Mr Chan Yew Kwong, Director of OSH Inspectorate, opened the session with a grim reminder of all the major construction fatalities that happened in the past year, and urged the industry to learn from the subsequent sharing to prevent the recurrence of these accidents.
MOM shared the findings of several key accidents that happened in 2014 and highlighted the root causes leading to these accidents. This was followed by an interactive Q&A session, where the audience had the opportunity to have their queries addressed by OSHD panellists. They included questions about the effectiveness of risk assessments and bizSAFE, and the importance of developing safety culture through the mindset and actions of the companies’ leadership.
PROBE+ FORUM 2015
More than 500 industry leaders and stakeholders gathered to attend the annual Programme-Based Engagement or ProBE Plus Forum 2015 held in April 2015. Jointly organised by the MOM, WSH Council and supported by the WSH Institute, the Forum aimed to create greater industry awareness of the key WSH priority areas identified. Crane Safety, Work at Heights Safety, Slips, Trips and Falls (STF), and Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorder (WRMSD) prevention were the 4 key priority areas for ProBE+ 2015.
Guest of Honour, Mr Mohd Abdul Akbar Bin Mohamed Abdul Kader, Chairman of the WSH Council’s National Crane Safety Taskforce, highlighted that while we had made progress in reducing workplace fatalities, more efforts were required to reduce the number of workplace injuries. This prompted MOM to expand the ProBE Plus programme coverage this year to include major injuries, dangerous occurrences and occupational diseases.
Priority area – Crane Safety
MOM had completed the trial on implementation of data logger on mobile cranes. Moving forward, all new mobile cranes would be required to be equipped with data loggers from 1 Aug 2015, and existing ones retrofitted with data loggers by 1 Aug 2018. To support this, WSH Council would be launching a new co-funding scheme to help the industry defray the cost of implementing the data loggers.
Priority area – STF prevention
A new programme called Slips and Trips Evaluation Programme (STEP) would be piloted in 2015. Designed to equip employers with the knowledge and skills to manage STF risks, STEP would include site visits to participating companies and focus on hands-on implementation. The pilot project for STEP aimed to help 200 small & medium-sized enterprise companies prevent STF accidents at their workplaces.
Priority area – Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD) Prevention
An MSD Symposium to raise awareness and to help employers learn more about work-related musculoskeletal disorder was held in October 2015. The symposium gathered both MOM and industry subject matter experts to share on the latest development in MSD prevention and industry best practices that employers can adopt to protect their employees before they get hurt.
National WAH TF
The National Work At Heights Safety Taskforce (WAH TF) visited several workplaces in 2015, in response to fatal fall from height accidents that occurred at these workplaces. Led by Mr Chow Yew Yuen, CEO of Keppel Offshore & Marine, these site visits were part of WSH Council’s Accident Response Framework (ARF). The ARF aimed to provide better ground sensing of WSH challenges and concerns faced by the construction industry. These visits helped the WSH Council identify possible gaps in our engagement and capability building efforts, and better strategise our approach to offer assistance and improve WAH safety standards.
The worksite project teams gave an account of what they knew about the accidents and shared candidly with the WAH Taskforce on the challenges they faced. Members of the Taskforce examined accidents scenes in order to better understand the environmental and WAH challenges faced by the developer, main contractor and subcontractor.
Based on their observations and experience, the Taskforce members offered their views of areas where the occupiers and their contractors could improve. The occupiers felt that the visits by the Taskforce were beneficial as it provided the team with fresh insights and perspectives. The project teams visited assured the Taskforce that they would continue to ramp up efforts to improve WAH safety in their worksites.
WAH CLINICS SERIES 2015
More than 120 WSH professionals from various construction companies attended the ProBE Plus Work at Heights (WAH) Clinics in July 2015 held at the Devan Nair Employment and Employability Institute. The WAH Clinics provided a platform for smaller groups of industry stakeholders to gather and have an interactive and informative dialogue session with MOM to address key WAH issues.
One of the highlights was the use of multimedia to enhance the presentations where actual MOM inspections were filmed and screened for the audience to experience ‘live’ on-site views from the inspectors’ perspective. This helped the participants to better understand the falling risks posed by the contraventions shown.
The WAH Clinics also featured an interactive brainstorming session where participants shared, appraised and discussed key WAH issues including WAH management system, WAH competency, and WAH technical solutions.
Participants who attended the WAH Clinics shared that they had benefitted from the sharing of good practices where they could adopt and implement at their workplaces.
MSD SYMPOSIUM 2015
Close to 200 industry stakeholders gathered to attend the Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) Symposium held on 6 Oct 2015 at the Novotel Singapore Clark Quay. The Symposium kick-started with presentations by MOM on the Overview of MSD and Ergonomics Management Programme. This was followed by the WSH Institute sharing its ergo@WSH mobile app with the audience.
The Symposium also featured two industry guest speakers who are ergonomics subject matter experts:
To wrap up the Symposium, an interactive Q&A session was held to allow the audience to seek clarifications on MSD prevention from the panel of expert speakers.
FALLS PREVENTION CAMPAIGN LAUNCH EVENT
To reinforce 2015’s National WSH Campaign message on prevention, the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council launched a festive season campaign with an emphasis on falls prevention. About 400 participants attended the launch of the Falls Prevention Campaign 2015 on 26 November 2015 at the Max Atria @ Singapore Expo.
Guest-of-Honour, Mr Sam Tan, Minister of State, Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Manpower, shared that the objective of the campaign is to remind companies to not overlook seemingly “small things” at work such as not cleaning up spilled water on the floor or putting tools back in its rightful place. If these small things are ignored, it could lead to “bigger problems” and cause accidents at work. He reiterated that everyone had a responsibility and a part to play in making our workplaces safe, and that we should not let our guard down.
The event provided 3 separate tracks in the afternoon, to allow participants to choose a Falls Prevention Clinic of the most relevance to their industry sectors and natures of business. Track 1 focused on work at heights safety, and was championed by the National WAH Safety Taskforce and the Access & Scaffold Industry Association (ASIA). This track targeted the construction and marine industries, and included several live demonstrations of WAH solutions that the participants can implement for their WAH activities. Tracks 2 and 3 focused on slips, trips and falls (STF) prevention. The 2 tracks on STF targeted several sectors that were plagued with STF injuries, such as manufacturing, logistics and transport, and food and accommodation services. The STF tracks touched on how employers could adopt Behavioural Observation and Intervention to improve STF prevention in their workplaces.
Following the launch event, the campaign message was communicated through various media platforms including newspaper, television, webisode, digital and outdoor media spaces at MRT stations and on buses over the next three months.
CRANE SYMPOSIUM 2015
The National Crane Safety Taskforce, in collaboration with MOM and WSH Council organised the Crane Safety Symposium on 7 October 2015 to raise awareness on crane safety. More than 300 industry stakeholders attended the Symposium. Guest of Honour Mr Sam Tan, Minister of State (MOS), Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Manpower (MOM) graced the occasion. In his opening address, Mr Tan shared on the increasing trend of dangerous crane-related occurrences with 17 incidents in the first eight months of 2015 as compared to 9 dangerous occurrences for the same period in 2014. Mr Tan also highlighted that close collaboration between Government and industry was necessary to tackle WSH hotspots.
On this front, he introduced various joint initiatives between MOM, WSH Council and the Taskforce to raise crane safety standards:
SISO SEMINAR
About 75 personnel from the services, hotel and construction sectors attended a seminar organised by the Singapore Institution of Safety Officers (SISO) to learn more about work-related accidents and admissibility of claims under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA) on 29 May 2015. This marks the second year WICD has been invited by SISO as a speaker for its seminar. Mr Affendi Bisri fielded questions from the audience on various aspects of WICA such as incident reporting and permanent incapacity.
SISO NEWSLETTER
WICD ran a four-part question-and-answer feature “WICA Clinic” in the Singapore Institution of Safety Officers (SISO) “Safety Matters” newsletter. The quarterly feature covers various WICA topics to raise employers’ awareness on WICA.
FOREIGN WORKER CASCADING WORKSHOP
The foreign worker (FW) cascading workshop, is a multi-department project organised by the Foreign Manpower Management Division, which aims to educate FWs on their employment rights and responsibilities, WSH and WIC, among others. This workshop was attended by selected FWs who were nominated by their dormitories as ambassodors, so that they can share our messages with their fellow workers through word-of-mouth.
COMIC STRIPS BOOKLET
WICD produced a booklet carrying 7 comic strips to educate employees on various work injury compensation issues. Available in four languages (English, Chinese, Tamil and Bengali), the booklets are disseminated at various outreach platforms such as the foreign worker dormitory roadshows and work injury compensation orientation programmes (WICOP).
ADVERTORIAL ON WORK INJURY COMPENSATION ACT CHANGES
With effect from 1 January 2016, compensation limits have been raised and treatments that facilitate early return to work will be claimable as part of WICA medical expenses. To raise public awareness of these WICA amendments, WICD produced an advertorial describing the changes and also, reiterating employer’s obligations under WICA. The advertorial was published on 15 December 2015 in The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Lianhe Wanbao, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu.
WORK INJURY COMPENSATION INSURANCE 101 THROUGH INFOGRAPHICS
An infographic was produced to provide an overview of WIC insurance, addressing commonly-encountered questions by employers on work injury compensation. The infographic can be found at workwise.sg.
NEW FOREIGN WORKER DORM ROADSHOW EXHIBITS AND GIFTS
Foreign worker (FW) dormitory roadshows in 2016 will be refreshed with new standees and a new spin-a-wheel game booth, educating workers on their work injury compensation rights and the claims process. To ensure that FWs are able to understand our WIC messages, these standees contain messages in native laguages (English, Chinese, Tamil and Bengali). The design of the standees is also made more visual centric. FWs will be given a waist pouch bearing WIC message as a gift for their participation.
There have been many outreach and engagement programmes in 2015 to promote the benefits of WSH and to share the latest in WSH developments. Conventions, seminars, forums and clinics are some of the few that were organised.
WSH FORUM FOR CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
About 200 representatives from the construction industry gathered on 4 February 2015 for a WSH Forum titled “Learnings from Inspections and Investigations”. Mr Chan Yew Kwong, Director of OSH Inspectorate, opened the session with a grim reminder of all the major construction fatalities that happened in the past year, and urged the industry to learn from the subsequent sharing to prevent the recurrence of these accidents.
MOM shared the findings of several key accidents that happened in 2014 and highlighted the root causes leading to these accidents. This was followed by an interactive Q&A session, where the audience had the opportunity to have their queries addressed by OSHD panellists. They included questions about the effectiveness of risk assessments and bizSAFE, and the importance of developing safety culture through the mindset and actions of the companies’ leadership.
PROBE+ FORUM 2015
More than 500 industry leaders and stakeholders gathered to attend the annual Programme-Based Engagement or ProBE Plus Forum 2015 held in April 2015. Jointly organised by the MOM, WSH Council and supported by the WSH Institute, the Forum aimed to create greater industry awareness of the key WSH priority areas identified. Crane Safety, Work at Heights Safety, Slips, Trips and Falls (STF), and Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorder (WRMSD) prevention were the 4 key priority areas for ProBE+ 2015.
Guest of Honour, Mr Mohd Abdul Akbar Bin Mohamed Abdul Kader, Chairman of the WSH Council’s National Crane Safety Taskforce, highlighted that while we had made progress in reducing workplace fatalities, more efforts were required to reduce the number of workplace injuries. This prompted MOM to expand the ProBE Plus programme coverage this year to include major injuries, dangerous occurrences and occupational diseases.
Priority area – Crane Safety
MOM had completed the trial on implementation of data logger on mobile cranes. Moving forward, all new mobile cranes would be required to be equipped with data loggers from 1 Aug 2015, and existing ones retrofitted with data loggers by 1 Aug 2018. To support this, WSH Council would be launching a new co-funding scheme to help the industry defray the cost of implementing the data loggers.
Priority area – STF prevention
A new programme called Slips and Trips Evaluation Programme (STEP) would be piloted in 2015. Designed to equip employers with the knowledge and skills to manage STF risks, STEP would include site visits to participating companies and focus on hands-on implementation. The pilot project for STEP aimed to help 200 small & medium-sized enterprise companies prevent STF accidents at their workplaces.
Priority area – Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD) Prevention
An MSD Symposium to raise awareness and to help employers learn more about work-related musculoskeletal disorder was held in October 2015. The symposium gathered both MOM and industry subject matter experts to share on the latest development in MSD prevention and industry best practices that employers can adopt to protect their employees before they get hurt.
National WAH TF
The National Work At Heights Safety Taskforce (WAH TF) visited several workplaces in 2015, in response to fatal fall from height accidents that occurred at these workplaces. Led by Mr Chow Yew Yuen, CEO of Keppel Offshore & Marine, these site visits were part of WSH Council’s Accident Response Framework (ARF). The ARF aimed to provide better ground sensing of WSH challenges and concerns faced by the construction industry. These visits helped the WSH Council identify possible gaps in our engagement and capability building efforts, and better strategise our approach to offer assistance and improve WAH safety standards.
The worksite project teams gave an account of what they knew about the accidents and shared candidly with the WAH Taskforce on the challenges they faced. Members of the Taskforce examined accidents scenes in order to better understand the environmental and WAH challenges faced by the developer, main contractor and subcontractor.
Based on their observations and experience, the Taskforce members offered their views of areas where the occupiers and their contractors could improve. The occupiers felt that the visits by the Taskforce were beneficial as it provided the team with fresh insights and perspectives. The project teams visited assured the Taskforce that they would continue to ramp up efforts to improve WAH safety in their worksites.
WAH CLINICS SERIES 2015
More than 120 WSH professionals from various construction companies attended the ProBE Plus Work at Heights (WAH) Clinics in July 2015 held at the Devan Nair Employment and Employability Institute. The WAH Clinics provided a platform for smaller groups of industry stakeholders to gather and have an interactive and informative dialogue session with MOM to address key WAH issues.
One of the highlights was the use of multimedia to enhance the presentations where actual MOM inspections were filmed and screened for the audience to experience ‘live’ on-site views from the inspectors’ perspective. This helped the participants to better understand the falling risks posed by the contraventions shown.
The WAH Clinics also featured an interactive brainstorming session where participants shared, appraised and discussed key WAH issues including WAH management system, WAH competency, and WAH technical solutions.
Participants who attended the WAH Clinics shared that they had benefitted from the sharing of good practices where they could adopt and implement at their workplaces.
MSD SYMPOSIUM 2015
Close to 200 industry stakeholders gathered to attend the Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) Symposium held on 6 Oct 2015 at the Novotel Singapore Clark Quay. The Symposium kick-started with presentations by MOM on the Overview of MSD and Ergonomics Management Programme. This was followed by the WSH Institute sharing its ergo@WSH mobile app with the audience.
The Symposium also featured two industry guest speakers who are ergonomics subject matter experts:
To wrap up the Symposium, an interactive Q&A session was held to allow the audience to seek clarifications on MSD prevention from the panel of expert speakers.
FALLS PREVENTION CAMPAIGN LAUNCH EVENT
To reinforce 2015’s National WSH Campaign message on prevention, the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council launched a festive season campaign with an emphasis on falls prevention. About 400 participants attended the launch of the Falls Prevention Campaign 2015 on 26 November 2015 at the Max Atria @ Singapore Expo.
Guest-of-Honour, Mr Sam Tan, Minister of State, Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Manpower, shared that the objective of the campaign is to remind companies to not overlook seemingly “small things” at work such as not cleaning up spilled water on the floor or putting tools back in its rightful place. If these small things are ignored, it could lead to “bigger problems” and cause accidents at work. He reiterated that everyone had a responsibility and a part to play in making our workplaces safe, and that we should not let our guard down.
The event provided 3 separate tracks in the afternoon, to allow participants to choose a Falls Prevention Clinic of the most relevance to their industry sectors and natures of business. Track 1 focused on work at heights safety, and was championed by the National WAH Safety Taskforce and the Access & Scaffold Industry Association (ASIA). This track targeted the construction and marine industries, and included several live demonstrations of WAH solutions that the participants can implement for their WAH activities. Tracks 2 and 3 focused on slips, trips and falls (STF) prevention. The 2 tracks on STF targeted several sectors that were plagued with STF injuries, such as manufacturing, logistics and transport, and food and accommodation services. The STF tracks touched on how employers could adopt Behavioural Observation and Intervention to improve STF prevention in their workplaces.
Following the launch event, the campaign message was communicated through various media platforms including newspaper, television, webisode, digital and outdoor media spaces at MRT stations and on buses over the next three months.
CRANE SYMPOSIUM 2015
The National Crane Safety Taskforce, in collaboration with MOM and WSH Council organised the Crane Safety Symposium on 7 October 2015 to raise awareness on crane safety. More than 300 industry stakeholders attended the Symposium. Guest of Honour Mr Sam Tan, Minister of State (MOS), Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Manpower (MOM) graced the occasion. In his opening address, Mr Tan shared on the increasing trend of dangerous crane-related occurrences with 17 incidents in the first eight months of 2015 as compared to 9 dangerous occurrences for the same period in 2014. Mr Tan also highlighted that close collaboration between Government and industry was necessary to tackle WSH hotspots.
On this front, he introduced various joint initiatives between MOM, WSH Council and the Taskforce to raise crane safety standards:
SISO SEMINAR
About 75 personnel from the services, hotel and construction sectors attended a seminar organised by the Singapore Institution of Safety Officers (SISO) to learn more about work-related accidents and admissibility of claims under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA) on 29 May 2015. This marks the second year WICD has been invited by SISO as a speaker for its seminar. Mr Affendi Bisri fielded questions from the audience on various aspects of WICA such as incident reporting and permanent incapacity.
SISO NEWSLETTER
WICD ran a four-part question-and-answer feature “WICA Clinic” in the Singapore Institution of Safety Officers (SISO) “Safety Matters” newsletter. The quarterly feature covers various WICA topics to raise employers’ awareness on WICA.
FOREIGN WORKER CASCADING WORKSHOP
The foreign worker (FW) cascading workshop, is a multi-department project organised by the Foreign Manpower Management Division, which aims to educate FWs on their employment rights and responsibilities, WSH and WIC, among others. This workshop was attended by selected FWs who were nominated by their dormitories as ambassodors, so that they can share our messages with their fellow workers through word-of-mouth.
COMIC STRIPS BOOKLET
WICD produced a booklet carrying 7 comic strips to educate employees on various work injury compensation issues. Available in four languages (English, Chinese, Tamil and Bengali), the booklets are disseminated at various outreach platforms such as the foreign worker dormitory roadshows and work injury compensation orientation programmes (WICOP).
ADVERTORIAL ON WORK INJURY COMPENSATION ACT CHANGES
With effect from 1 January 2016, compensation limits have been raised and treatments that facilitate early return to work will be claimable as part of WICA medical expenses. To raise public awareness of these WICA amendments, WICD produced an advertorial describing the changes and also, reiterating employer’s obligations under WICA. The advertorial was published on 15 December 2015 in The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Lianhe Wanbao, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu.
WORK INJURY COMPENSATION INSURANCE 101 THROUGH INFOGRAPHICS
An infographic was produced to provide an overview of WIC insurance, addressing commonly-encountered questions by employers on work injury compensation. The infographic can be found at workwise.sg.
NEW FOREIGN WORKER DORM ROADSHOW EXHIBITS AND GIFTS
Foreign worker (FW) dormitory roadshows in 2016 will be refreshed with new standees and a new spin-a-wheel game booth, educating workers on their work injury compensation rights and the claims process. To ensure that FWs are able to understand our WIC messages, these standees contain messages in native laguages (English, Chinese, Tamil and Bengali). The design of the standees is also made more visual centric. FWs will be given a waist pouch bearing WIC message as a gift for their participation.
Businesses and workers who demonstrate good WSH practices and behaviours are recognised at a national level.
WSH AWARDS 2015
The annual WSH Awards celebrates the best in WSH. It recognises companies and individuals for their commitment and outstanding performance in WSH. In 2015, 191 companies and individuals were honoured at the WSH Awards 2015 gala dinner held on 29 July 2015 at Resorts World Sentosa. Jointly organised by the WSH Council and MOM, and supported by the WSH Institute, the event was graced by Minister for Manpower, Mr Lim Swee Say as the guest-of-honour.
bizSAFE CONVENTION 2015
More than 800 participants attended the 7th annual bizSAFE Convention on 5 February 2015. Themed, “A Safer and Healthier Workplace for Everyone”, the Convention aimed to encourage more SMEs to embark on the journey of WSH through bizSAFE.
Guest of Honour, then-Minister for Manpower, Mr Tan Chuan-Jin, announced that the national workplace fatal injury rate for 2014 has been reduced to 1.8 per 100,000 employees from 2.3 in 2013. It was a commendable achievement by the stakeholders and the industry but there was a need to sustain the efforts.
The revised Code of Practice on WSH Risk Management (RM) was launched at the event to assist companies in implementing RM effectively. A step-by-step START guide was also shared with participants to help them to get started on WSH. It was also emphasised that SMEs could tap on existing funding assistance schemes such as the Singapore Workforce Development Agency’s subsidies to send their employees for training in bizSAFE levels 2 and 4.
National WSH Campaign 2015
The WSH Council, in collaboration with MOM and WSH Institute, launched the National WSH Campaign 2015 on 24 April at the Playspace@SCAPE. Guest of Honour, then-Minister for Manpower, Mr Tan Chuan-Jin, launched the Vision Zero movement. The movement aimed to encourage companies and individuals to adopt a mindset that all injuries and ill health arising from work are preventable. The message for NWSH Campaign 2015, “I can prevent all injuries and be healthy at work”, also underlines the intent of Vision Zero movement.
To drive greater awareness on the Vision Zero movement, the WSH Council also launched the Vision Zero Song Writing Competition as part of its year-long outreach efforts to spread the Campaign message to the industry and public.
Various e-learning WSH modules focusing on different workplaces and audiences were also launched:
In November 2015, to emphasise the overall WSH campaign message on prevention, the WSH Council, in collaboration with MOM, launched a festive campaign focusing on falls prevention to remind all that seemingly insignificant incidents such as poor housekeeping could cause big problems like an accident. As part of the campaign, the WSH Council launched a series of print ads, bus ads and a new webisode. WSH Council’s TV commercial “This Could Be You” was also aired on free-to-air TV and cable.
UK HEALTH AND SAFETY EXECUTIVE/LABORATORIES (HSE/L) PRACTICAL ATTACHMENT
With the planned enactment of the WSH (Major Hazard Installations) Regulations to effect the Safety Case regime, it is crucial to enhance the Safety Case assessment capabilities of our officers. One of the enhancements was through a 3-week practical attachment to HSE-HSL of the United Kingdom (UK) which is aimed at studying UK’s experiences in managing MHIs through the Safety Case regime. This was done through a combination of classroom training, demonstrations and on-site inspections.
During the attachment, our officers gained invaluable insights on how the UK has implemented the Safety Case Regime, including the pitfalls and the lessons learnt over their own journey of 40 over years.
MOM-SCIC DIALOGUE 2015
The annual SCIC-MOM Dialogue was held at the MND auditorium on 13 October 2015 and was graced by Division Director Er. Ho Siong Hin. A wide array of topics was shared, including Globally Harmonised System (GHS) implementation, Work at Heights, Overfill protection in storage terminals and combustible dust hazards. Also prominently featured was the up and impending Safety Case regime. The proposed regime aims to strengthen regulatory coordination by coalescing agencies’ efforts into a single regulatory front to address all MHI SHE matters.
Mr Go Heng Huat, Director of OSH SPECS fielded the Q & A segment in a lively exchange with industry participants. Mr Akira Yonemura, Sponsor of SCIC’s Regulatory Affairs Committee, ended the dialogue on a high note of the importance of fostering cooperation between the Chemical Industry and MOM in our safety endeavours.
FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION FOR THE PROPOSED WSH (MAJOR HAZARD INSTALLATIONS) REGULATIONS
On 8 September 2015, representatives from 66 companies attended the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) on the proposed WSH (MHI) Regulations. The FGD was organised by OSHD with the support of regulatory agencies NEA, SCDF, and economic agencies EDB and JTC. The FGD participants were also apprised by Mr Amit Bhatnagar, Singapore Refining Company’s Process Safety Manager and co-Lead of the Joint Government-Industry Workgroup, of the collaborative efforts between the MHI industry and government agencies to co-develop a Safety Case Technical Guidance for the industry.
The FGD was the first of the several outreach sessions conducted for the MHI industry before the publishing of the WSH (MHI) Regulations on the REACH portal for public consultation in December 2015.
OWL WORKSHOP WITH ORCHSE
On 25 February 2015, WSH Institute organised a workshop with members from the Organisation Resources Counselors, Health, Safety and Environment (ORCHSE) group to identify new and emerging WSH risks in Asia. Comprising of senior HSE executives operating in the Asia-Pacific region, the participants actively provided their views and shared their concerns. Findings from the workshop were shared at the WSH Institute Forum on 11 March 2015.
OWL WORKSHOP WITH THE HEADS OF AOSHRI DELEGATES
A second OWL workshop was organised on 10 March 2015 during the AOSHRI-Sheffield Group Meeting held in Singapore and was attended by members of the Asian Occupational Safety and Health Research Institutes (AOSHRI). The delegates provided their perspectives on current and upcoming WSH risks from their respective countries. Similarly, findings from this workshop were shared at the WSH Institute Forum.
WSH INSTITUTE FORUM
The participants comprised of foreign delegates from AOSHRI and Sheffield Group, corporate leaders, researchers from IHLs, public officers, representatives from the various industries, and safety and health professionals. Experts from risk observatories in Asia, Europe and Canada shared on emerging WSH risks and how they can be managed through the provision of holistic integrated services.
