Fatigue Management New Regulations – NR/L2/OHS/003

Fatigue-related incidents continue to increase at an alarming rate. Needless to say, fatigue in any form is a potential risk to both individuals and companies. This is why we must make constant efforts in addressing it.

Every worker faces huge pressure to perform at their best. This leads to an evident link between fatigue and mental health affecting a worker’s performance: from their ability to complete tasks to redundancy, suspension or being discharged from employment.

Fatigue is something we all experience. Whether it is at work or at home, it still presents risks. A large percentage of construction requires manual labour, meaning that managing fatigue becomes a key factor.

THE NEW RULES.

Network Rail see fatigue as one of the greatest risks to project safety. Therefore, they are constantly looking at ways to mitigate this risk in the workplace. They have recently released a guidance document with vital concepts and amendments supporting the Fatigue Risk Management Standard (FRMS) with immediate effect from 29th October 2022. These new rules mean that both employees and employers must have a strategy to manage and control risk fatigue throughout the network. It comes after a series of incidents where people lost consciousness or suffered medical complications across the country in their line of duty.

The new regulations touch on:

1. Working time limits
2. The design of working patterns
3. Assurances that new regulations in place are adhered to by both employers and employees.

Components may include:

• Fatigue management policy
• Fatigue incident investigation
• Intermittent fatigue reporting from employees
• Clear information on fatigue hazard, cause of risk and preferable mitigation measures
• Set process for internal and external audits
• Sleep disorder management and others.

On 7th December 2019, they drafted new changes in the regulations relating to risk assessment. These concerns include the operator’s ability to control or calculate fatigue and exposure of their workers on board. CNB works directly with Network Rail and all UK railway operators to help reduce risk and lower resultant costs, and with innDex being cloud-based, there is seamless accessibility from any device, anywhere.

At innDex, we are providing the tools for a better connected workforce, cutting across the industry so that our clients can access real-time insights and KPIs to make informed, data-driven decisions towards improving their workers’ safety and mental health.

The new regulations and risk management systems by NR are to help make the industry safer for everyone who uses them. Managers and employees can take advantage of this cutting-edge technology through the innDex platform. Specifically, automated systems would prompt users upon non-compliance, resulting in fewer mistakes. This creates a more streamlined workflow, less harm from accidents. In other words, this tool helps increase efficiency within the work environment by enabling better communication between the team members.

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