Susan Nichol attended the recent speaker event held by the North West Area in Manchester. Susan is a student on the IRO diploma course in railway operations management.
Susan commented that the IRO event couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time for her as she had just started studying the Safety Law & Management module as part of the diploma course with the IRO. Whilst having a good knowledge of Rail Safety, her understanding of safety law and legislation was at best, limited.
The presentation given by Clive Fletcher-Wood (tutor on the IRO professional development programme) in Manchester started off by giving a resume of the work Clive had done and a summary of the various accidents most of us are, unfortunately, familiar with, such as Hatfield, Great Heck, Ladbroke Grove, to name but a few. He then went on to discuss the inquiries set up to review some of these accidents, it was quite concerning to hear that the Hatfield Rail Accident occurred during the Cullen enquiry whilst the Ladbroke grove accident happened during the Uff inquiry! The presentation also covered gross negligence, the act of corporate manslaughter and corporate Homicide. This was followed by an overview of the Health and Safety at Work Act and in particular section 37.
From the start of his talk Clive engaged with his audience presenting what could be a difficult subject to grasp into a very interesting and informative talk, Clive’s wealth of knowledge on the subject and his approachability to answer questions made this event both interesting and informative.
I left the presentation with three key thoughts, Always challenge the orthodoxy, make feedback work and always record every decision in writing, A thoroughly enjoyable evening arranged by the NW area. I look forward to attending another presentation by Clive some time in the future.
Speaker: Clive Fletcher-Wood OBE, Hon FIRO
Author Susan Nichol, Engineering Strategy Manager Virgin Trains