International Ergonomics Society (IEA)

The IEA's mission is to advance ergonomics science and practice, and to expand its scope of application and contribution to society. The CIEHF is one of over 50 Federated Societies of the IEA, and with that comes representation on the IEA Council to discuss activities for its global initiatives, and publication of documents and guidelines among other things.

In 2019, the IEA celebrates its 60th anniversary since its formation.

Clinical Human Factors Group

The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors and the Clinical Human Factors Group (CHFG) are working together to promote an interest in and the integration of human factors and ergonomics within the UK healthcare sector to improve patient and staff safety.

Each organisation brings a unique strength: the CIEHF membership is the largest group of professional human factors and ergonomics specialists in the UK and the CHFG network engages with a wide range of clinical and managerial healthcare staff and strategic influencers interested in human factors and ergonomics. We believe by strengthening connections between these supporter bases and extending our reach, we are likely to increase the understanding and integration of human factors and ergonomics in healthcare.

In short, the CHFG continue to succeed in promoting human factors and ergonomics with a high profile within healthcare, CIEHF members deliver quality human factors and ergonomics work across all sectors of the economy including in academia.

PARN

We are a member of PARN, the Professional Associations Research Network, which shows that our professional body is:

• Committed to good practice
• Kept up to date on current research
• Part of a network of professional bodies that learn from and share with each other

The Council for Work and Health

The Council for Work & Health brings together various professional bodies which address health at work to provide an authoritative and representative ‘single voice’ on health and wellbeing issues. Ergonomics and human factors are recognised as important in designing work and jobs to prevent workplace injuries and ill health and in modifying workplaces to get people back to work after absence. The CIEHF was one of the early members and is represented by Tom Stewart who has been elected onto the Board of the Council for a period of three years from 2013.

Health at work is often seen in purely medical terms and the CIEHF wants to ensure that ergonomics and human factors are fully recognised for their roles especially in prevention and rehabilitation. Playing a full part in this organisation gives us an opportunity to shape future health and work in the UK. One of the major Council projects we are involved with is to model future occupational health service provision for the next 20 years. The Council’s Business Plan and projects are described on its website at www.councilforworkandhealth.org.uk.

Being aligned with organisations such as the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists and the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health also increases our voice with government and industry.

British Standards Institute

The CIEHF has a representative on the Technical Committee PH/9 Applied Ergonomics to ensure the best possible ergonomics, technical and professional advice is available to BSI and hence ISO. This contributes to high quality standards which are used throughout the profession by organisations with an interest, including many government agencies such as MoD and NHS, industry, offices, safety organisations and others. Find out more about standards.

The Hazards Forum

The CIEHF is an associate member of The Hazards Forum. The Hazards Forum was established in 1989 by the four major engineering institutions, the Institutions of Civil, Electrical, Mechanical and Chemical Engineers to provide an interdisciplinary focus for the study of disasters and the promulgation of lessons learned from them. Since then the Forum has broadened its remit to inform the public understanding of risk, while continuing to develop its work on the assessment of hazardous events, dissemination of lessons learned and the promotion of risk reduction strategies. A member of the CIEHF attends meetings of the Hazards Forum to put forward the views of the ergonomics and human factors community and to support the forum in its aims.