RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

September 29, 2006
HONOURS FOR HEALTH AND SAFETY CHAMPIONS

Two men who have played an outstanding part in promoting workplace health and safety have been presented with Distinguished Service Awards by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

The presentations to Brian Kazer and James Reason were made at RoSPA’s Occupational Health and Safety Awards in Glasgow last night by Lord Jordan of Bournville, the Society’s Deputy President. The awards were sponsored by NEBOSH – the National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health.

Brian Kazer from Tring, Hertfordshire, is Chief Executive of the British Occupational Health Research Foundation. He was previously Head of Health and Safety at Blue Circle Industries, where he contributed to a major improvement in the company’s occupational health and safety performance. Throughout his career he has helped to drive up standards, particularly in occupational health and health and safety training and education. He was President of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) in 1992, and served as Chairman of its Professional Affairs Committee for three separate periods. During this time, he introduced and, with others, developed the IOSH CPD (Continuing Professional Development) scheme and also pioneered flexible training, which developed into the highly successful IOSH course, ‘Managing Safely’. Brian successfully ‘sold’ the idea of post-graduate health and safety diplomas, MSc and BSc courses to the newer universities and later developed the associated accreditation standards. He led the Technical Advisory Group which advised the Occupational Health and Safety Lead Body on the original vocational H&S qualifications - the first vocational qualifications in which levels were distinguished by underpinning knowledge.

Professor James Reason CBE from Disley, Cheshire, has made an outstanding contribution to the understanding of human error in fields as diverse as aviation safety and patient safety, and of human factors in industrial safety generally. His work on safety and human factors now underpins much health and safety practice around the world. After graduating in psychology, James worked for the Institute of Aviation Medicine before becoming a lecturer at Leicester University. He completed a PhD and was Professor of Psychology at Manchester University from 1977 until 2001. His primary research interest has been human and organisational factors in the breakdown of complex, well-defended systems. James has written many books on subjects including absent-mindedness, human error, managing the risks of organisational accidents, and managing maintenance error. He has carried out research across the full spectrum of work activities, but specifically dealing with aviation, railways, nuclear power generation, maritime safety, oil exploration and production, road safety and healthcare. In 2003, he was made a CBE for services to reducing the risk of healthcare.