A safety passport training scheme pioneered in the underground railway sector by a division of Metronet has contributed to a dramatic impact on accident rates.

The division responsible for upgrading underground stations and maintaining civil assets says that the safety passport scheme – an essential part of Metronet’s health and safety initiatives – has led to a 75 per cent reduction in accident statistics in only 18 months.

The passport scheme has been developed by leading UK health and safety training company, Safety Pass Alliance Ltd., based in Rugby, Warwickshire.

SPA has developed passport schemes for a range of industry sectors. They involve a core health and safety module, followed by a second module dealing with risks and issues specific to the industry.

The civils and stations arm of Metronet’s Asset Renewal activities has embraced the scheme designed specifically for contractors working on underground railways.

Workers who successfully complete the training course can prove their awareness of basic principles of health, safety and environmental protection in the maintenance of underground railways.

“We introduced the passport scheme about three years ago and around 1,500 employees attended in the first 18 months,” said Metronet’s safety and environmental services manager for stations and civils, Ewan Campbell-Lendrum.

“Since then the scheme has really taken off and in the last 18 months the total number of trainees has gone up to 9,000 – which includes short-term contractors on site. At the same time the number of accidents has been reduced by 75 per cent.”

He said that the Accident frequency rate (AFR) – the standard measure of accidents that are required to be reported to the Health and Safety Executive – had fallen from 0.4 to 0.1 (per 100,000 hours worked on the project) in only 18 months.

“To put this into context comparable figures for the rail industry are 0.25 and for the construction industry 0.4. This achievement is particularly notable as it has been achieved despite the fact that the majority of our site workers are new to the underground environment.

“Safety passport is an essential component of the measures that have helped us achieve this dramatic reduction and sits alongside more traditional initiatives such as supervision and risk assessment.”

He added that in one area of Metronet’s work the accident rate was zero – there had not been an accident in over 18 months – representing over three-and-a-half million hours worked.

“We have now decided that everyone who comes to work at one of our sites must attend and pass a safety passport course.”

Ewan said that to pass a candidate had to successfully complete the course that included training on risks associated with moving trains, electricity through the rails, working in confined spaces, working on temporary structures, and asbestos.

“The environment is also a significant issue and our people are trained on this aspect. As most of our work is carried out at night we have over 110 legal agreements with councils on the steps we need to take to control noise and the passport is an essential measure to ensure we comply with these agreements night-in night-out,” said Ewan.

Ray Gibbs, SPA’s managing director, said that the success of safety passport within Metronet reflected the progress that had been made on health and safety in other business sectors.

“In the food and drinks sector companies such as Nestle have reported a 68 per cent reduction in accidents,” said Ray.

“The Passport scheme benefits the bottom line of both the client and contractor as it streamlines the site induction process. It also provides the peace of mind that only a common, recognised and validated standard of training can provide.”

Most companies in the food and drinks industry require contractors to enter their premises to carry out vital work such as repairs, maintenance, and installation of new equipment.

Unfortunately, contractors can pose an unknown risk to existing safety procedures as it is not always possible to ensure that individual contractors’ employees have been trained to an acceptable level of health and safety awareness specific to the food and drinks industry.

This is where Nestle UK and other food and drinks companies have found the Safety Pass Alliance Ltd. (SPA) Food and Drink Passport scheme to be a huge benefit. Contract workers and employees who successfully complete the training course are able to prove their awareness of basic principles of health and safety in the food and drinks workplace by showing their Safety Passport, developed by SPA.

Nestle employs approximately 9,000 people at over 20 different locations around the UK. The main brands being KitKat, Nescafe, Gold Blend, Aero, Drifter, Polo, Smarties, Yorkie, Perrier, Buxton water, Vittel, Purina, Ski, Herta, Shredded Wheat, Shreddies and many others.

Safety at Nestle is an important part of our culture. If there is a major safety issue at any one of our 550 plants worldwide, a safety bulletin can be issued to every one of those plants identifying the problem and how it should be dealt with.

The passport is a robust and secure card – similar to a UK driving licence – that displays a tamper-proof photograph of the successful trainee. The photocard features a special ultra-secure ‘holocote’ finish to prevent fraud.

The passport is awarded only after an individual has been trained successfully in food and environmental protection, transport, electricity and health and safety best practice specific to the food and drinks industry.

The passport training for contractors provides a detailed understanding of the responsibilities that they – and their employers – have to each other and the consumer. The cost of the training is met by the contractors who are required to ensure their employees have a valid passport to prevent them from being refused access to a food and drinks site.

The health and safety training scheme cuts costs and reduces potential safety hazards caused by visiting contractors and their employees. Nestle UK introduced the scheme three years ago and have been involved in developing it to suit the needs of the food and drinks sector.

Initially we estimated that we had 3,000 contractor companies on our books. The implementation of the passport scheme helped us to understand that the figure was closer to 1,500. We wrote to all of them to explain the scheme, the mutual benefits, and why we were determined to make it work.

Then we asked one of the SPA Approved Training Providers to administer this huge training programme by contacting each company and inviting them to attend a course. We realised there would be additional costs for the contractors so we made it easier for them to attend by making training rooms available at all our sites across the UK. This also reduced travel time and the need for overnight expenses, therefore reducing costs.

We made it clear we wanted our contractors to put their employees through the scheme as we put our own employees through equivalent training courses. We told them that this was the route to becoming a preferred supplier to Nestle.

Nestle are now working with about 750 contractor companies, and over the last three years more than 3,000 individuals have been through the scheme – they all hold safety passports.

The introduction of the safety passport scheme helped us to find out which suppliers were keen to improve their own businesses and to continue as suppliers to Nestle. We have virtually halved the number of our suppliers, but we feel we have a much better working relationship with this smaller, more committed, group. We have a better understanding of their businesses, and their comprehension of our business has been enhanced.

The introduction of the safety passport at Nestle was part of a review and tightening of all our own contractor management safety procedures. This has resulted in a reduction of contractor accident statistics by 68 per cent over the last two years.

The type of accidents experienced at Nestle, tend to be those that are fairly common throughout the food and drinks sector. They involve manual handling, ‘slips and trips.’ About 96 per cent 2 come under the heading of ‘behavioural issues’ so we are constantly raising awareness of these issues through our own internal behavioural programmes and other measures.

We have dedicated health and safety boards placed strategically around our facilities, and at the entrances to our sites, like York, where we have a huge board about 20 feet wide and six feet high proclaiming “Be Safe – Be the Best.” It’s all part of reinforcing the importance of safety not only to our own employees but also to our contractors and visitors.

For the future we are planning to have similar boards at plant exits so that the last thing they see when leaving our facilities is a reminder that they should constantly think about health and safety on the road and away from work.

The passport scheme is an integral part of our health and safety management system. We know the scheme benefits everyone as it helps to eliminate accidents and pain and suffering.

It also has a positive effect on the bottom line of both the client and contractor as it reduces the time needed to be spent on accident investigations and site inductions, by making them more site specific. It also provides the peace of mind that only a common, recognised and validated standard of training can provide.

SPA, based in Rugby, Warwickshire, developed the scheme specifically at the request of the food and drinks sector which involved leading companies such as Nestle UK, Northern Foods, Geest, Kellogs Europe, Cadbury Trebor Bassett and Bass Brewers.

Contractor organisations such as the Processing and Packaging Machinery Association also played a role in validating the training material.

The programme, acknowledged by the Health and Safety Executive, is one of many developed by the Safety Pass Alliance. SPA is committed to providing a nationally recognised standard of health and safety training through a passport culture in a wide range of business sectors – from general manufacturing to quarries, and from underground railways to the pharmaceutical sector.

In the food and drinks sector Nestle will continue to improve the scheme throughout this year and will also ensure that in future all sub-contractors will be undertaking safety passport training.

At Nestle UK we take all health and safety issues very seriously. We will make the scheme work because we genuinely believe that it is the way forward for the future and it has to happen across the food and drinks sector.

We also audit and review our own internal policies and procedures for managing and monitoring contractors on an annual basis, and decide what more needs to be done to improve them. Our continuous improvement programme includes employing a company, National Britannia, to audit the safety management systems of contractors and potential contractors.

The passport scheme for the food and drink sector is not only used at Nestle. It is continuously reviewed by a steering group from the industry comprising representatives of major companies mentioned earlier, a contractor safety manager, an SPA director, and a Trades Union representative.

The passport scheme is gaining momentum and the food and drinks passport is the second largest in the country. That’s not bad for something that is less than four years old.

However, we believe it does need more promotion. We still come across a large number of contractors who say ‘I don’t know anything about this scheme.’ That’s why we shall do all we can to raise awareness of the benefits of safety passports.

Gilbarco Veeder-Root, the UK’s biggest supplier of equipment and services to petrol forecourts, has called on contractors to ensure that their employees hold up-to-date safety passports.

Terry Moody, Gilbarco’s Health and Safety Adviser who also manages the training department, said that the industry believed many employees had not renewed their safety passports.

The passport scheme for the petrol retail industry was developed by the UK’s leading authority in health and safety passport schemes, Warwickshire-based Safety Pass Alliance (SPA) Ltd., in conjunction with the Petrol Retail National Safety Group.

The first two-day courses were held in October 2000 and over 13,000 industry employees have been awarded their safety passports after successfully completing their training. The passport enables contract workers and employees to prove their awareness of basic principles of health and safety in the petrol retail workplace.

Terry said: “There is a concern that many people haven’t renewed their passports, but working practices, technology, legislation, and products are changing all the time. The safety passport courses are refreshed and updated to take account of these developments.”

Employees in the industry had to be made aware of new products on the forecourts, new thresholds in recent Noise at Work regulations, and the new Working at Height regulations that have made significant differences in the way people work on canopies and signware.

“Every single one of our field staff at Gilbarco goes through the training. When an engineer joins the company he has four weeks training of which one week is on health and safety. Two days of that week is specifically devoted to the SPA scheme.

“A lot of our support staff, such as help desk employees and sales staff, have gone through the scheme, not necessarily because they need it, but because we believe it allows them to empathise with the issues that engineers face in the field.”

Terry added: “We recommend everyone to get their passports renewed. When we sub-contract certain works to electricians, for example, we insist that the operatives that undertake the work are holders of current safety passports before they can work for us. If required we are able to deliver the training to our sub-contractors.

“Last year we had our best-ever year as far as accidents are concerned, and we cite the passport scheme as one of the reasons for the low number.”

Gilbarco’s views were reinforced by Chris Hunt, Director-General of the UK Petroleum Industry Association. He said: We have been instrumental in introducing the scheme into our industry, and the safety passport is required by all our members and other major retailers.

“It is important for contractors to keep their passports up to date as refresher training will highlight any recent changes to legislation in addition to the special hazards associated with working on a forecourt.”

Ray Gibbs, managing director of SPA Ltd., said: “A growing number of business sectors in the UK are now embracing safety passport schemes to help reduce accidents and improve efficiency in their companies.

“Major corporations in the food and drinks, construction, quarries, and pharmaceutical sectors are among those that have implemented the safety passport culture and have cut their accident statistics. There is now plenty of evidence to demonstrate that safety passport schemes play a major part in reducing accidents and improving the bottom line.”

A growing number of business sectors in the UK are now embracing safety passport schemes to help reduce accidents and improve efficiency in their companies.

Major corporations in food and drinks, construction, and petroleum and oil, are among those that have implemented the safety passport culture and have cut their accident statistics.

The passport schemes have been developed by the UK’s leading authority in health and safety passport schemes, Safety Pass Alliance (SPA) Ltd., based in Rugby, Warwickshire.

Ray Gibbs, SPA’s managing director, said: “Most companies require contractors to enter their premises to carry out vital work such as repairs, maintenance and installation of new equipment.”

“Unfortunately, contractors can pose an unknown risk to existing safety procedures as it’s not always possible to ensure that individual contractors’ employees have been trained to an acceptable level of health and safety awareness specific to their own industry.”

He went on: “This is where the SPA Passport scheme is a huge benefit. Contract workers and employees who successfully complete the training course can prove their awareness of basic principles of health and safety in the workplace by showing their safety passport.

“The Passport scheme benefits the bottom line of both the client and contractor as it reduces the time needed to be spent on site inductions. It also provides the peace of mind that only a common, recognised and validated standard of training can provide.”

A new safety passport scheme, developed specifically for the pharmaceutical sector, is the latest to be launched by SPA. It will be pioneered by Eli Lilly, one of the UK’s top pharmaceutical companies.

The company has told 160 contractor organisations that their employees will not be allowed into the company’s Basingstoke manufacturing site from September 1 unless they hold a valid safety passport.

It is expected that hundreds of contractors’ employees will attend the new two-day health and safety training courses that provide specific information about hazards in the pharmaceutical industry.

Will Hooper, Eli Lilly’s environmental health and safety adviser who has been involved in developing a pilot scheme for the industry, said: “We got involved because we saw the very positive track record that SPA has achieved in other industry segments.

“There is not only anecdotal evidence but hard data that demonstrates that the safety passport scheme can reduce accidents.”

He went on: “Our industry is not as high risk as some other sectors like construction, but we do have specific risks. For example, working with pharmaceutical compounds can be a hazard. A contractor entering a process room would not be able to physically see a hazard caused by a concentration of dust – but he must be trained to understand the dangers.”

Will added: “The new safety passport scheme is another tool in the bag for us to raise our safety standards. The bottom line is that we shall have more control and confidence in what contractors are doing when they visit us.”

The passport is a robust and secure card – similar to a UK driving licence – that displays a tamper-proof photograph of the successful trainee. The photocard features a special ultra-secure ‘holocote’ finish to prevent fraud.

One of the first sectors to benefit from safety passports was the food and drinks industry. SPA developed a scheme at the request of the sector and involved leading companies such as Nestle UK, Northern Foods, Geest, Kellogs Europe, Cadbury Trebor Bassett and Bass Brewers.

Contractor organisations such as the Processing and Packaging Machinery Association also played a role in validating the training material.

Ian Burke, group safety manager for Nestle UK, said the company was visited by thousands of contractors each year. “We have made it clear that we will only do business with those contractors who ensure that their employees have been through the scheme and have been awarded their passports,” said Ian.

“We have found that the passport scheme not only reduces our costs – it takes less time to conduct safety inductions – but it has had a dramatic effect on accident rates among visiting contractors.

“We have found our rates have reduced by 68 per cent over the past two years.”

In the public sector Leicester City Council was the first local authority in England to introduce a safety passport scheme for its housing maintenance operatives. The council has seen a 32 per cent drop in its accident rates in the last three years.

“A large part of this reduction is directly attributable to a greater awareness brought about by the introduction of the safety passport scheme,” said Frank Imms, senior health and safety adviser of Leicester City Council.

He said that 840 employees had been put through the passport scheme, 520 of which were trades people who completed the tailor-made health and safety training course on building maintenance that provides them with a safety passport.

“Both the number and severity of accidents have reduced considerably,” said Frank. “Nowadays we are looking towards zero tolerance and don’t want any accidents. The culture has changed so that people are constantly thinking about their safety and the safety of others.

“Customer care is also important. One of our mantras is that the part of a home where our operatives have worked should be the cleanest and tidiest part when they have finished the job.”

He said that last year operatives from the council’s housing technical services department had carried out 201,866 repairs ranging from gas servicing to routine repair work. The number of visits to tenants’ homes was much higher.

The safety passport scheme is specifically for people engaged in building maintenance. It includes training on customer care, power tools, occupational health, asbestos awareness, and access and egress.

“In addition to the passport scheme we also deliver specific training on a range of subjects including manual handling, scaffolding awareness, accident investigation, stress awareness and fire safety,” said Frank.

“We are now starting to put our employees through an upgrade safety passport scheme that takes account of recent changes in legislation.”

The first local authority in England to introduce a safety passport scheme for its housing maintenance operatives has seen a 32 per cent drop in its accident rates in the last three years.

“A large part of this reduction is directly attributable to a greater awareness brought about by the introduction of the safety passport scheme,” said Frank Imms, senior Health and Safety Adviser of Leicester City Council.

He said that 840 employees had been put through the passport scheme, 520 of which were trades people who completed the tailor-made health and safety training course on building maintenance that provides them with a safety passport.

The scheme was introduced three years ago when it was first developed by the UK’s leading authority in worker Health and Safety passport schemes, Safety Pass Alliance (SPA) Ltd., based in Rugby, Warwickshire.

“Both the number and severity of accidents have reduced considerably,” said Frank. “Nowadays we are looking towards zero tolerance and don’t want any accidents. The culture has changed so that people are constantly thinking about their safety and the safety of others.

“Customer care is also important. One of our mantras is that the part of a home where our operatives have worked should be the cleanest and tidiest part when they have finished the job.”

He said that last year operatives from the council’s housing technical services department had carried out 201,866 repairs ranging from gas servicing to routine repair work. The number of visits to tenants’ homes was much higher.

The safety passport scheme is specifically for people engaged in building maintenance includes training on customer care, power tools, occupational health, asbestos awareness, and access and egress.

“In addition to the passport scheme we also deliver specific training on a range of subjects including manual handling, scaffolding awareness, accident investigation, stress awareness and fire safety,” said Frank.

“We are now starting to put our employees through an upgrade safety passport scheme that takes account of recent changes in legislation.”

Ray Gibbs, SPA’s managing director, said: “Local authorities and private companies operating in property maintenance and refurbishment, where the CSCS card was not appropriate have adopted the SPA Passport to ensure a high standard of Health and safety for operatives.

“Unfortunately, contractors can pose an unknown risk to existing safety procedures as it’s not always possible to ensure that individual contractors’ employees have been trained to an acceptable level of health and safety awareness specific to their industry or business sector.

“This is where the SPA Passport scheme is a huge benefit. Employees and contract workers who successfully complete the training course can prove their awareness of basic principles of health and safety in the workplace by showing their Safety Passport.”

The passport is a robust and secure card – similar to a UK driving licence – that displays a tamper-proof photograph of the successful trainee. The photocard features a special ultra-secure ‘holocote’ finish to prevent fraud.

The Passport training provides a detailed understanding of the responsibilities that they – and their employers – have to each other and the consumer. The cost of the training is met by the contractors who are required to ensure their employees have a valid Passport to prevent them from being refused access to an operational site.

“The Passport scheme benefits the bottom line of both the client and contractor as it reduces the time needed to be spent on site inductions. It also provides the peace of mind that only a common, recognised and validated standard of training can provide,” said Ray.

The building maintenance programme, acknowledged by the Health and Safety Executive, is one of many developed by SPA. The company is committed to providing a nationally recognised standard of health and safety training through a passport culture in a wide range of business sectors – from general manufacturing to quarries, and from underground railways to the pharmaceutical sector.

United Biscuits (‘UB’), a leading European manufacturer of biscuits and snacks, has called on its contractors to adopt the industry’s safety passport scheme in a drive to further improve safety at all its manufacturing and distribution sites.

The company has informed 600 contractor organisations that from January next year they will be required to present their safety passports before commencing work on site.

It is expected that hundreds of contractors’ employees will attend the two-day health and safety training courses that provide specific information about how best to manage the workplace hazards in the food and drinks industry. Safety passports will be issued to successful candidates.

The passport scheme has been developed by the UK’s leading authority in health and safety passport schemes, Safety Pass Alliance (SPA) Ltd., based in Rugby, Warwickshire.

SPA has already successfully introduced safety passport schemes in several other business sectors where leading companies have reported a dramatic reduction in accident statistics among visiting contractors’ employees.

Andrew Melachrino, UB’s health and safety environment manager, said: “The need to carry a safety passport will apply to all contractors whose work involves a significant health and safety aspect. All the training will be held on our sites.

“The decision to ask contractors’ employees to carry passports is part of our ongoing drive to improve contractor health and safety.

“We feel it will help us to improve the competency of contractors and demonstrate to them that we are serious about health and safety.”

He said that UB is also introducing measures to ensure that contractor organisations are operating sound health and safety practices within their own companies.

Ray Gibbs, SPA’s managing director, said: “Most companies in the food and drinks sector require contractors to enter their premises to carry out vital work such as repairs, maintenance and installation of new equipment.

“Large companies like UB are among those that recognise that the passport scheme benefits the bottom line of both the client and contractor as it reduces the time needed to be spent on site inductions. It also provides the peace of mind that only a common, recognised and validated standard of training can provide.”

The passport is a robust and secure card – similar to a UK driving licence – that displays a tamper-proof photograph of the successful trainee. The photocard features a special ultra-secure ‘holocote’ finish to prevent fraud.

The Food and Drink Steering Committee have produced an excellent summary of the experiences gained when implementing the scheme on their own sites. This guide to is available on the Food Sector page, or you can click here to download the document: [read more].

Depeche Mode

December 2009 Issue 124

http://www.tpimagazine.com/production-profiles/400954/depeche_mode.html

Thirty years in and Depeche Mode are still delivering intelligently crafted visuals and groundbreaking production, as Rachel Esson & Louise Stickland discovered at Geneva’s Palexpo Arena on the tour of the universe …

If there were to be a TPi Award for ‘Friendliest Tour’, then there’s no doubt that Depeche Mode would win it hands down. They say that a good vibe comes from the top down, and on this tour it rippled from the good spirit of the band and key production staff, led by Tony Gittins and Helen ‘Hels Bells’ Smith — from the pink and fluffy production office which light-heartedly disguised their incredible organisational and logistical skills.

Gittins commented: “Hels Bells and I did the 2006/07 tour and it was a great experience so we were really looking forward to doing this one, they are probably the best band we’ve worked with — very grounded and great performers.”

“Depeche Mode are a really nice bunch of guys,” added FOH sound engineer Antony King. “They sit in catering with us and are very down to earth, which is good considering they’ve been doing it for so long.”
Our trip to Geneva’s Palexpo Arena on November 10 proved that Depeche Mode’s phenomenal 30-year live performance career shows no sign of waning. In fact, the Tour Of The Universe, so named after their 12th studio album, Sounds Of The Universe, raised the bar once again with an innovative set design underpinned by a sophisticated application of LED visuals and technology.

Rehearsals kicked off in April in New York and the tour, orchestrated by tour manager Tim Lougee, began with a European leg of stadium gigs launching in Luxembourg on May 6, which required eight trucks from Stagetruck and four buses from Beat The Street. Rock-It Cargo handles freight, Music By Appointment manages travel and Eat Your Hearts Out provides catering.

Production rehearsals in Luxembourg were attended by Simon James, a director of The Event Safety Shop (TESS) who trained the crew for the SPA’s Safety Passport and carried out an audit of technical and other risks, after the company was approached by Gittins and advance site co-ordinator Chrissy Uerlings to develop safety management system for the tour. James commented: “This was part of an overall plan from Tony and Chrissy to nurture a positive and proactive safety culture on the tour. What this means is that touring crews adopt safe working, look out for each other and try to spot risks before they become accidents.”

Back in the TESS office Tim Roberts was busy developing a range of documents to help the tour navigate the requirements of various countries, venues and enforcing agencies. “Chrissy and Tony had a really clear idea of what they wanted to achieve with various briefing sheets and sign-offs,” added James. “For a tour where a lot of the production is sourced locally (including stages, roofs and electrics), it is critical for the tour to be able to explain clearly the technical standards and crew competence they require of suppliers, and that the tour has done everything it reasonably can to ensure the whole set-up is safe and secure.”

Although gigs had to be cancelled between May 12 and June 7 due to lead vocalist Dave Gahan’s bout of gastroenteritis and a leg injury, it pushed on and headed for the U.S. in July for more stadium gigs. We caught the show shortly after it arrived back in Europe for the latter stint of arena dates that will finish in February 2010.

Gittins said the main challenge, besides the logistics of doing nine stadium shows in 17 days in South America, was the practicalities of building a stadium show that could easily be cut down, but create the same effect, for the arenas. To achieve this they designed the show to fit arenas and used scaled down arena stages supplied locally, then added side screens and some synchrolites for the stadium shows, for which they also used local stages, with many supplied by Stageco.

The only other elements of the set they toured with were Total Fabrications’ bespoke designed risers and the large demisphere of MiTrix LED from XL Video. For arenas, the number of trucks was reduced from 10 to eight.

It must be hard work to make a big barn like Geneva’s Palexpo feel intimate and personal, but for Dave Gahan, it seemed an effortless challenge as he strutted his stuff, paraded his spectacular body art and belted out hit after intricately-worded hit.

Depeche Mode’s visuals have always been edgy and innovative, with much of it down to the fertile imagination of their long time creative director, photographer and film maker Anton Corbijn. They were one of the first bands to tour a large scale video set up on 1993’s notorious Devotional tour, which is sadly more remembered by most mainstream sources for nearly ending in shreds of mental instability than as an aesthetic and technical masterpiece.

Moving image has been at the essence of their live presentation ever since and few do it better than Anton Corbijn.

Corbijn evolves the video for each tour in an imaginatively cerebral fusion of expression and ideas, always avoiding the latest technological clich

http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2011/coi-ne-05711.htm

Date:

14 April 2011

Release No:

SCO/033/11

A Stonehaven animal grain company has been fined after one of its workers fell from an excavator bucket onto a concrete floor, sustaining head injuries.

On 9 December 2009, Douglas Mortimer, a mill operative employed by East Coast Viners Grain LLP, was preparing animal feed. This task involved him climbing into an excavator bucket to shake the contents of a tote bag to allow an even spread of it into the excavator bucket. However, he lost his balance and fell approximately five feet onto the concrete floor below. He received a cut to his head which needed to be stapled, and lost consciousness for a period of about five minutes. He was kept in hospital overnight for observation.

The HSE investigation found that there was no safe system of work in place for preparing the specialist mix. The method which had been used by Mr Mortimer was unsafe because it involved employees working unnecessarily at height with no control measures to prevent them from falling. The investigation also revealed that the company had not carried out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks involved because this was a task that was required only occasionally.

At Stonehaven Sherrif Court today (13 April) East Coast Viners Grain LLP, Broadwood, Drumlithie, Stonehaven was fined