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The health and safety (H&S) of employees, contractors and anyone involved in our productions (including contributors, crew and audience members) is a high priority for ITV.

Making a television programme involves many potential hazards. Some relate to equipment used, such as cables and lighting rigs, while others are associated with activities required to capture the desired content – everything from setting up special effects to filming in a war zone.

For each ITV production, we conduct a risk assessment to identify potential hazards and use our health and safety management system to put accident avoidance measures in place. Any production company filming at ITV Studios must also provide us with details of their risk assessment and health and safety management processes.

In total, 316 accidents were reported at ITV in 2009. This is 14% less than 2008, in part due to our increasing H&S measures and in part to the reduction in headcount and production output at ITV. Three quarters of these accidents occurred on productions.

Health and safety management system

Our health and safety (H&S) policy, risk assessment process and management system are designed to minimise the frequency and severity of any accidents that occur, by making sure that we foresee hazards wherever possible and control them appropriately.

Their implementation is governed by our H&S Steering Group and a network of local H&S Committees, which are also responsible for communicating the policy and associated procedures to employees throughout the company.

We have introduced ‘near miss’ reporting, with the aim that hazards and potential accidents are identified and dealt with before injury occurs. Employees and production teams reported 79 near misses in 2009, meaning that one incident without injury was reported for every four accidents resulting in injury.

For any accident that does occur, we investigate the cause and aim to put measures in place to prevent it from happening again. Where necessary we work with the UK Health and Safety Executive to conduct investigations and obtain advice on avoiding and managing H&S risks.

On set and on location

All productions being filmed at ITV Studios (including those made by independent companies) and ITV productions on location, must complete a health and safety risk assessment before filming begins A member of our H&S team is assigned to provide support to each production. Independent production companies must also provide details of their health and safety management system.

In 2009, 75% of reported accidents took place on productions. Three separate incidents (vehicle accidents on the sets of Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Heartbeat) were classified as ‘high risk’. We thoroughly investigate the root causes of any high risk accidents and introduce appropriate controls to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence. During 2009 the Health and Safety Executive and ITV’s H&S department concluded investigations into the Coronation Street and Heartbeat vehicle accidents, as well as an accident on the set of Miss Marple in 2008. They found that our risk management was suitable, and ITV has not been prosecuted or fined.

Production injuries are most commonly caused by slips, trips and falls, which comprised nearly a quarter of accidents in 2009. Several initiatives have helped us to reduce this by 16% since 2008. For example, we have introduced a routine inspection schedule for all ITV premises to check for trip hazards, and are taking extra care at ITV Studios to ensure cables are placed so that audience members are less likely to trip on them. We have re-routed cabling to avoid audience access routes and are conducting a project to assess different types of cable covers and identify the one that is most successful at avoiding trips.

Loud noise, for example during production rehearsals with live bands, may affect the hearing of people working at ITV Studios. We have used the results of several noise monitoring studies conducted on productions last year to identify those most affected. In 2009, we began a project to provide them with personalised hearing protection devices that reduce ambient noise to a safe level while still allowing them to hold conversations and hear instructions.

Production teams must also identify suppliers of higher risk goods or services, such as special effects contractors. Our H&S team vets high risk suppliers to ensure they too have appropriate H&S management systems in place.

In 2009 we put the finishing touches to a process designed to check that external production companies commissioned to produce content for ITV have appropriate H&S management systems in place. The system will require production companies to complete a questionnaire on how they identify and manage H&S risks, and provide us with the documentation we need to assess their procedures. Asking these questions will also help to raise their awareness about H&S issues.

In the office

It is important that our desk-based staff have a comfortable, ergonomic working environment that reduces the risk of repetitive strain or neck and back injuries. All ITV employees can access office safety and ergonomics training on the company intranet, and each has a work station risk assessment to ensure their desk and monitor set up is right for them.

Non-production accidents including injuries in the office fell by 26% between 2008 and 2009. Again this was partly due to the reduction in headcount at ITV.

Training and awareness

ITV offers employees a variety of online and in-person H&S training, tailored to each specific role.

Online training packages include:

• Fire safety, for all
• Office safety and ergonomics assessment, for office-based staff
• An introduction to production and news H&S, for those working on productions or news programmes
• Electrical safety, manual handling, asbestos awareness and noise awareness, for technical staff

We run full day safety courses for people who work on productions and have a responsibility for H&S and risk assesments. In 2009, ITV became a licensed provider of the four-day Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) Managing Safely course, aimed at employees such as senior production managers and facilities managers with significant H&S management responsibility. We ran four IOSH courses in 2009, involving around 30 people. A further 250 staff have previously taken the IOSH training course when it was run at ITV by a third party company.

From time to time we also introduce bespoke training designed to address specific hazards. In 2009 these included a series of workshops for post production staff about steps they can take to avoid work-related upper limb disorders such as repetitive strain injury.

We collaborate with other broadcasters on the Health and Safety Passport initiative, chaired by Skillset, the skills council for the creative media sector. The initiative aims to provide production employees and freelancers with transferable, universally-recognised H&S training.

Employee wellbeing

We recognise that supporting our employees’ wellbeing is an important part of being a responsible business, and is also crucial for their performance at work.

As a production and broadcasting business, we have employees at work 24 hours a day and working outside the UK in other time zones. It is important that employees working outside normal UK office hours can access support.

In 2009 we rolled out our employee assistance programme across the business. It offers 24 hour telephone support, seven days a week. Employees can also benefit from up to six sessions of face-to-face counselling, where they can discuss work-related and personal issues in confidence.

Industry collaboration

We share H&S best practice with other employers in the production and broadcasting industry. Our industry collaboration on H&S includes membership of the:

• Joint Advisory Committee for Entertainment, chaired by the UK Health and Safety Executive
• Production Industry Safety Group, for which one member of our H&S team acts as Secretary
• Joint Industry Grading Scheme (to ensure that stunt, special effects and scaffold rigging professionals are competent and have all necessary training), where we sit on the Board
• Health and Safety Passport Governance Group (see training and awareness, above).

Work related accidents to staff

1 Major accidents are classed as those reportable under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations