Business profile
What does this mean for your company? The award is recognition of the constant focus and efforts made by the SHEQ team as well as management and staff in maintaining a rigorous safety-focused culture across all areas of the company. The award can be seen by clients as an indication of the importance we place on safety and demonstrates no compromise is made in respect to keeping staff, clients and the public safe in what we do, despite the constant commercial pressure, which has never been greater.
How important is Healthy and Safety to you and how do you ensure it? H&S is central to all HVMS's activities. Every day, all our staff and sub-contractors are working in or around live switchgear and cables, so while we still face all the usual hazards such as slips, trips and falls, we are also facing more deadly hazards associated with electrical equipment and cables, as well as traffic and trains when these assets are in the public highway or trackside respectively. These hazardous working environments ensure a heightened emphasis with regard to H&S needs to be exercised, and ensures all policies, procedures and behaviours have H&S in mind. Human factors and behavioural based
safety initiatives are continuously evolving within the company and our safety culture is ranked annually using the RSSB safety culture maturity model. Accidents caused by fatigue are a genuine risk within our industry, especially when staff are working irregular hours and varying shifts. Preventative control measures exercised by HVMS include the utilisation of the HSE Fatigue Management and Risk Index Tools to ensure adequate rest between shifts is maintained while taking into account door-to-door travelling time. Continuous health and safety
Page 128 July/August 2013
improvement is maintained through several different mechanisms, including: • mobile classroom Safety Truck training and briefing sessions directly at the place of work
• Safety Stand Down’ (stop work) briefing sessions are undertaken at least quarterly throughout the year at the worksite and company offices
• Close Call (near miss) reporting via the RSSB maintained national on-line reporting system and database.
Specific HVMS accident prevention
training and briefing campaigns, includes driving awareness, sub-station familiarisation, manual handling, nips and pinches prevention and cut prevention. The company maintains several health and safety-related integrated business management system accreditations that are externally audited and certified, including OHSAS 18001:2007, NWR principal contractor licence, ISO 9001:2008, Achilles link-up, Achilles UVDB verify, NERS, NICEIC, ECA and CHAS.
How do you think other companies can improve their safety policies? Most companies have robust safety policies in place. The main area for improvement across the industry should be assuring company safety policies are fully complied with. HVMS operates its own Distribution Safety Rules which help govern authorisations and competency assessments which sit alongside existing company procedures, and between them drive health and safety behaviours for its management, staff, and sub-contractors. The company carries out more than
180 health and safety site inspections per annum as part of its H&S management regime, to ensure policies and procedures are being observed on site. It also provides the site operatives with the opportunity for feedback, toolbox talks and
competency assessment.
How has the British Safety Council helped with H&S at your company? Membership of the British Safety Council has given HVMS access to key information to help us manage H&S legislation and compliance. The company uses this to assist with planning and where appropriate to make changes to its integrated business management systems as a proactive action rather than a reactive measure to an accident, incident or audit non-compliance.
Looking at your current and future developments, what sectors (and possibly clients) do you mainly work within? HVMS has three principal operating divisions: Rail Networks, Utility Networks and Private Networks. Key clients include:
Rail - Network Rail, Docklands Light Railway, London Underground Utilities - UK Power Networks, SSE, Northern Power Grid Private networks - facility management companies, commercial and industrial end- users, hospital trusts, main contractors, water companies, museums and government offices
In partnering with suppliers, consultants and sub-contractors, how do they assist during projects? HVMS operates a robust pre-qualification programme with respect to its supply chain, and utilises long-term framework contracts. External service providers are under the same obligations as our own staff and treated in the same way. For a selection of case studies that highlight HVMS's achievements go to
www.hvms.co.uk/news. For further information, contact Dave Swadling. Tel: 0845 644 4867 Email:
david.swadling@hvms.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148