South West

About the Group
The South West Ergonomic Active Region, SWEAR, is a small but perfectly formed proselytising group of people made up of current IEHF Fellows, Registered Members, Associate Members and many non-members. Our group is predominantly drawn from health practitioners who have an interest in ergonomics.

Our tri-monthly focus is held in a golf club on the Eastern borders of the region, where we draw interested parties from England and Kernow. It is surprising how many Cornishmen dare to cross the Tamar into Pow Sows (England). Meetings have been held in Plymouth Hospital but our focus has shifted towards East Devon. Our visits have ranged from a Skidpan Driving School (that embarrassed many husbands, not wives) to a Barometric Medical Centre and a brewery in Princeton, Dartmoor, next to the gaol.

The instigators of this group were Ted Lovesey and Val Noble, later joined by Donald Anderson and Bernie Masters, the current group co-ordinator, who is a chiropractor and an expert witness in this area of physical medicine. The group has recently grown its own steering committee in order to provide sufficient support to the group co-ordinator. The committee currently comprises Ted Lovesey, Donald Anderson and Val Noble. We hope to recruit two people from the pool of attendees to assist in planning.
Our speakers have been drawn from other professions and from ourselves. Our members have represented the Institute at a medical conference in Torbay. We have looked at the effects of G-force on the human frame, acceleration deceleration loading on the body. Senior Fellows have mentored papers in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, CAM, directing practitioners to fit the treatment to the patient and not the patient to the treatment.

Members and non-members are welcome to attend from anywhere in the UK, passports need not be shown. Sick of Christmas pudding in December? There are plans to hold an ‘Australian Christmas’ day social in high Summer - trying to understand the mental dichotomy Australians face having a seasonal winter meal in Summer.

Our lecture plans for the year include problem solving and solution finding: the ergonomic factors that would help the GP in practice, and a retrospective report on the factors that shape the form and function of human bones. Also we aim to contribute to Work and Wellbeing initiatives in the South West. The MSc in Work and Wellbeing starts in September and is aimed at local businesses as well as healthcare professionals.

We would like to run an introductory course on the principles of ergonomics or a multi-regional meeting, so if anyone is interested please get in touch.

Past meetings
27 January 2010: "Extreme G and whip-crack away", a talk about acceleration-deceleration trauma by Dr Ted Lovesey and Dr Bernard Masters
17 June 2009: meeting held at Churston, Paignton to discuss how ergonomics can help with disability and improve medical procedures.
8 October 2008: presentation about the regional Fire and Rescue Service headquarters that will be replaced by fewer but more ergonomically-designed centres over the next few years.