Health and safety

Safety is at the heart of everything we do. All our volunteers receive full safety training on expeditions and our head office provides 24 hour emergency cover and support for each expedition. We focus on preventing accidents, but in the event of an adverse event arising we have a robust Crisis Management Plan, comprehensive risk assessments and casualty evacuation and emergency plans for every project site in place, covering all eventualities from natural disasters and political instability to individual incidents.

Experience
Raleigh International has always endeavoured to be at the forefront of safety and development of systems and procedures. Because of our experience running expeditions we represented the Year Out Group in setting up the British Standard for the safe management of overseas ventures (BS8848). This British Standard provides a rigorous standard for organising and managing visits, fieldwork, expeditions and adventurous activities outside the United Kingdom. We have recently been externally audited by the Year Out Group and have been deemed BS8848 compliant on all out systems and procedures. Download BS8848: A parents' guide to adventurous activities abroad for young people

External Advice
We consult with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office regularly and have good relationships with the British Authorities, Government ministries and agents in each country who will give us early warning of any potential problems. Local medical services, emergency services and the military are also on hand to help if needs be.

Risk Assessment
Each country has a dedicated team of professional staff working full-time to ensure the optimal balance on expedition between risk and individual benefit/learning. We do this through thorough risk assessments at many levels - country operational, site and activity specific. Specific on-site risk assessments are completed for each project and will be done by our expedition leaders prior to the expedition based on our generic guidance and in-country advice pertinent to the project, people and conditions at the time.

We draw on a number of resources and experts such as Foreign and Commonwealth Office, health professionals, central and local government in-country, local NGOs and communities to ensure that we have the most up-to-date information relevant to our teams in the field.

Expeditions by their nature are dynamic environments and situations can change rapidly. All staff are trained to reassess risk in the live environment and where necessary adapt activities or programmes within Raleigh's guidelines and are always supported by our experts in-country.
All critical safety related documentation is then reviewed by our Operations team in London to ensure consistency and enforce high standards prior to expeditions commencing.

Training
Every individual who takes part in a Raleigh expedition will receive relevant health and safety training before departure at a pre-expedition training weekend and again on arrival in the expedition country. We pride ourselves on creating a safety culture on every expedition where, under close supervision, individuals are expected to take responsibility for their own safety and look after others in their teams.

Crisis Management
Raleigh's focus is primarily on preventing accidents however despite all of the precautions, training and preparation in place - accidents can and do rarely happen in life and expeditions are no exception. Raleigh has thorough systems in place to respond to anything out of the ordinary with excellent infrastructure in each country - 4x4 vehicles, medical staff and equipment, local medical specialists/advisors, 24hr communications network overseas and in the UK, and comprehensive medical insurance.

Transport
Raleigh has a very strict policy regarding transport and is always the first consideration when planning our activities and is top of any risk assessment that is conducted. Where possible we endeavour to use transport providers that are a registered tourist and transport providers, however once you leave the beaten track this becomes difficult to maintain. In these situations Raleigh has built up a network of local contacts that are able to provide transport in rural areas. Finally all vehicles are checked by our project staff on the day of travel to ensure that the vehicle is of a suitable standard. Please find below a brief outline of the different types of vehicles that are likely to be used:

Coach
The majority of your group's travel will be by coach; these will be provided by a company called Popular Express. Popular Express is a registered tourist and transport provider within Sabah, Malaysia they have been providing transport to Raleigh since 2002. They understand Raleigh's requirements and are very understanding of our needs to make basic checks of their vehicles on the day of travel.

Four wheel drive vehicles
Depending on the final location of your projects there may be a need to use four wheel drive vehicles to gain access. If these are used we use a local contact to contract enough vehicles of a suitable standard. Our contacts understand what we expect of the vehicles and that vehicles will be inspected on the day of travel. Raleigh never allows staff or students to travel in the back of these types of vehicles and ensure that every individual has their own forward facing seat. Therefore it is common that a group will be split across four or five vehicles during the journey, therefore a convoy system is adopted with a Raleigh staff member in both the front and rear vehicle.

Local vehicles and Taxis
On occasions it becomes necessary for the group to use a vehicle from a local village or a taxi. In these situations the Raleigh staff will carry out the usual minimum vehicle checks prior to using the transport.

Boats
Whenever Raleigh groups use boat transport it is essential that buoyancy aids are to be used. The boats used to transport Raleigh groups to the islands (in Borneo) operate from the local harbour and are registered with the tourism board. The boats used are operated by very experienced local boat handlers, the boats are checked prior to use by Raleigh project managers.

Raleigh Project Managers / Expedition Leaders
Every school expedition has a minimum of two Raleigh expedition leaders (project managers). These are highly experienced individuals who have led on previous Raleigh expeditions and are familiar with the country that the school is planning to visit. Also, as per the school's request, we ensure that one of our project managers is a medic (nurse or doctor trained with at least 2 years post qualification experience). There is always an absolute minimum of 1:8 ratio of Raleigh project managers to participants and with the presence of accompanying teachers the adult to participant ratio is lowered further.

Meeting Your Health and Safety requirements
We understand that health and safety is also your number one priority and we take the time to understand your school's or organisation's individual requirements. We are able to provide you with copies of our country risk assessments, examples of our project risk assessments, our medical guidelines and details of our insurance policies so that you can ensure they are compatible with your own required risk assessment systems and procedures.