Afternoon,

My new job is for a major charity which, among other things, supports sister organisations in alleviating disasters in foreign countries; I mean things like Typhoon Haiyan and the Haiti earthquake. Because of our unique nature (and we are, believe me) we also get caught up in combat zones.

We have a security bod who takes care of much of our international guidance, plus we follow procedures laid down by the two international governing bodies of our family of organisations, and this covers off personal safety and so on. But we aren't at the moment doing much for what you might call normal H&S type incidents that might affect our workers abroad. So for example, if one of our workers is kidnapped we hear all about it, if they slip and break an ankle on a poorly lit stairwell it takes an age for us to be informed, and then we get all confused about what we should do.

I have been asked to contribute a safety section for the new set of security documents, and I think I have a good idea where I am going with it. I will emphasise that as a UK employer we have a duty of care to our employees abroad, though what is reasonably practicable in a disaster relief operation might differ from the same standard applied to a quiet office in the UK. If you think that broad appoach is incorrect please let me know.

In particular what I'm asking for is any pointers to written material from HSE, UKFO or anybody to support safety for UK workers in foreign countries; I've tried searching the HSE web site but to no avail. Bear in mind that it's not the security stuff; bullets, bombs, kidnap etc are being done by somebody else, it's just the safety side of things I'm interested in. I'd also be interested in best practice from any sector regarding employees temporarily sent abroad,

Thanks,

John

There is excellent IOSH guidance.

The IOSH guide is "Safety without borders: Keeping your staff healthy and safe abroad". Use i.e. copy & paste the full URL --not the partial hyperlink to access it.

http://www.iosh.co.uk/~/...outBordersPOL111112.ashx

My personal view is that the IOSH website is not user friendly when it comes to looking for the entire range of the excellent IOSH guidance. Ond one has to undertake a search and also know what criteria to use as a filter, otherwise you end up with a huge amount of pages to schroll.

You say 'safety' but many of the most significant hazards may be to their health - so make sure that's covered too, i.e. both pre-planning in UK (inoculations, personal medical kits, etc.) and typical in-country controls such as for safe food and water.