This year’s H&S Conference did not disappoint, we have received some excellent feedback, this provides confirmation that we sourced the right blend of speakers to offer insight and knowledge on current topics. Thank you to all that attended and to our exhibitors and headline sponsor ecoPortal.

The day started by updating delegates on the move to minus 15°C and the industries sustainability journey. We reiterated the Health & Safety Services which are available to all BFFF members including queries, primary authority, benchmarking and the benefit of being part of our health & safety expert group.

Our first speaker was Tony Whelan from USDAW, was asked Tony to attend when one of our own member company employees suffered a life threatening knife attack while simply trying to do their job in a retail environment. USDAW has been very active lobbying government and campaigning against aggression and violence and shared the key message of forming partnerships between the local community and the police to tackle this issue.

This was followed by David Plowman from Partners& David provided some crucial advice for defending workplace transport claims which involves: learning from the pitfalls of real claims, defensibility through risk management, having robust documentation and efficient claims handling. Workplace transport sits in the top 3 H&S queries raised in 2026 by BFFF members and also second highest cause of fatalities in GB so a worthy addition.

Our keynote speaker for the morning was Ian Pemberton from Human focus. Ian explained that serious injuries and fatalities (SIF’s) still exist in many organisations despite improving safety records. He went to explain that in preventing SIF’s a different lens is required and that serious events follow complex system of pathways that traditional methods fail to detect. The key here is to use the framework of Safety Resilience Engineering. In addition, psychological safety is the enabler, without a culture of openness, no technical framework can function effectively at the frontline.

The next session refreshed us on the key principles to reduce the risk of manual handling injuries and delivered by Adam Snowdon of Pristine Condition. The session also focused of everyday techniques to better engage with the workforce on hazard spotting and near miss reporting.

To talk to us about the latest HSE Local authority targets areas, we were joined by Helen Atkinson who is both a senior EHO at Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and BFFF’s Primary Authority Partner. Our members were made aware of all the areas that would be included in future local authority inspections. Safety topics were outlined as: Planned preventative maintenance, violence and aggression, falls from height, workplace transport and enforcement notices being issued if large waste bins were found to be unlocked (due to the amount of fatalities with homeless using bins for rough sleeping). Health topics included: Legionella, asbestos, stress, MSD’s, noise and occupational asthma from dusty ingredients.

With members often looking to us for Noise solutions we are joined by our noise expert Gill Cussons from NVS to explore the practical steps that can be implemented in noise reduction. Gill encouraged delegates to look at noise from all angles not just the obvious sources.

With many of our members having construction work completed they fall in the scope of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations or CDM, this can cause much confusion. Craig Foyle joined us from Foyle Safety and Management and helped us to understand this through a presentation and an interactive Q&A exercise, this was invaluable.

Following on from an enjoyable lunch in the British Motor Museum’s Sky Suite, delegates had the opportunity to take part in several competitions with ecoPortal, Crown Forklifts, Human Focus and BSE.

The afternoon commenced with an interactive keynote roundtable session on AI from our headline sponsor ecoPortal. Speakers Mike Hanson and David Colley very quickly established that with many BFFF members were at the piloting stage in using AI, they explored the challenges affecting our member’s department outcomes, many delegates thought smart data capture was a priority while others favoured breaking down engagement barriers and removing literacy and language constraints. Many of the discussions took place with results from the delegate interactive polls matching previous research/surveys completed by ecoPortal. Many organisations were seeing the reduction in administration time as a key benefit of A.I.

BFFF members Stancold followed, Andy Connell then looked at the importance of moving away from Polystyrene coldstore panels which he compared as having the same constituents as napalm, to superior products such as Polyisocyanurate (PIR) type which offer excellent fire resistance. He looked at what this means for businesses and how a phased approach could be the solution.

On the back of this presentation, delegates were made aware of updated guidance from insurers NFUM on Fire Safety Guidance for Composite Insulated Panels, see below link:

H&S Conference – Combustible Composite Insulated Panels Article 0826 (2)

The day concluded with a legal update from Louise Mansfield from Bevan Brittan LLP, providing an overview of the latest legal developments and emerging issues which businesses should be mindful of. Louise predicted hybrid working and workplace temperature as an area to watch out for.

Feedback

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See link below:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SB6JWV5