HEALTHCARE ESTATES 2019 KEYNOTES


Views sought for current review Returning to the current AHEP review, he said: “A number of you may have already submitted thoughts and views. What we need is engagement from professionals in the sector to help bring us forward. If anyone here has anything they would like to feed into the review, it’s not too late. We have some draft proposals that will be going to the Board later this year, and there will be some more work to be done. The Diversity & Inclusion Agenda is taking a lot of effort currently, to ensure that we have these elements at the heart of our standards.” A slide shown at this point identified that the current review of the AHEP was considering: n The scope and purpose of engineering degree accreditation.


n What learning outcomes an engineering degree must address.


n Rationalising learning outcomes. n Balancing the needs of flexibility with international recognition.


n If AHEP needs to do more to encourage inclusion and diversity.


n ‘How we can best encourage innovation and future-proof engineering education while maintaining standards’.


n The process and standards for recognition of higher apprenticeships (including degree apprenticeships).


What’s in it for me?


Having discussed such key elements as ‘Competence’ and ‘Leadership’ in engineering, Alasdair Coates said he was often asked what benefits being registered with the Engineering Council would afford an individual engineer. He said: “Well, we often hear from employers that it’s a recognition of competence; many will specify within their employment contract or grading structure certain levels of professional registration. Registration is, of course, not forced upon people; it’s for the individual to choose, but we do have 230,000 individuals on our register.”


Guidance on ethics


Returning to engineering ethics, Alasdair Coates explained that the Engineering Council provided some guidance on the topic ‘for registration purposes’. He said: “Professional engineering institutions like IHEEM follow their own objectives and their requirements, and will deliver on their own ethics. As to our own advice on ethics, we advise all registrants on the key matter of ‘Honesty and integrity’ to ‘Be alert to the ways in which your work and behaviour might affect others, and to respect the privacy, rights, and reputations of other parties and individuals’.” On ‘Respect for life, law, the environment, and public good’, meanwhile, the Engineering Council advises registrants to:


64 Health Estate Journal January 2020


The Apprentice Zone at Healthcare Estates 2019. Alasdair Coates emphasised the many different career routes into engineering roles in his address.


n ‘Hold paramount the health and safety of others, and draw attention to hazards’.


n ‘Maximise the public good, and minimise both actual and potential adverse effects for their own and succeeding generations’.


n ‘Take due account of the limited availability of natural resources’, with ‘ethical environmental consideration’ (e.g. ‘If your amazing new smartphone only works with metals that are extremely damaging to mine, is that an ethical innovation?’).


Accuracy and rigour


On ‘Accuracy and rigour’, Engineering Council ‘ethics’ advice advocates that registrants should: n ‘Present and review theory, evidence, and interpretation, honestly, accurately, objectively, and without bias, while respecting reasoned alternative views’.


n ‘Not knowingly mislead or allow others to be misled’ – ‘taking an active role in both being accurate, and encouraging accuracy from others; not supporting/permitting inaccurate or biased views of innovation’.


As regards ‘Leadership and communication’, the advice is to: n ‘Be aware of the issues that engineering and technology raise for society, and listen to the aspirations and concerns of others’.


n ‘Promote equality, diversity, and inclusion – thinking about how innovation may affect diversity, or impact demographic groups differently’.


Need to ‘believe in engineers’ Alluding to the responsibilities and obligations on engineers and the profession, Alasdair Coates added: “Society needs to believe in engineers. We’ve all seen some notable engineering disasters – buildings on fire or bridges collapsing – internationally. Engineers tend to become front and centre of such incidents – questions get asked about


what they were doing; whether they were competent, and whether they were behaving ethically? Were they delivering with innovation and thought for the future, for the safety of all? It is thus a really important part that we play as the body that regulates the professional engineering institutions.” The speaker explained that the Engineering Council was currently working with the Royal Academy of Engineering on a programme ‘to really get the message about ethics out to the membership’. He said: “To give some examples of key ethical considerations – we might talk about Confidential Reporting on Structural Safety, or CROSS; could that be expanded?, the dangers of plagiarism in professional reviews, the fact that registration promotes ethical behaviour, and that society needs to be able to trust an ‘engineering expert’. All these areas are very important, and it is key to an engineer’s reputation that he or she can demonstrate independence of thought, ethical behaviour, and competence; this is what registration with the Engineering Council seeks to provide assurance of. Finally,” Alasdair Coates said, “there is the area of whistleblowing – this is another area that we are looking at, and, I believe, will continue to be a big topic going forward.


“To conclude,” the Engineering Council CEO said, “society needs trusted, competent, ethical, and innovative engineers. I think membership of a professional engineering institution, and being able to join the national register that we hold and run, are really important steps in securing that trust. In the world moving forward – the post-Grenfell world, as that starts to unfold – competence and commitment are right at the top of the engineering agenda, and we all have a duty and a responsibility to demonstrate that.”


With that, Alasdair Coates thanked Pete Sellars and IHEEM for the opportunity to speak at what he dubbed ‘a wonderful event’, and closed his presentation.


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