Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service has received a gold award at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Occupational Health and Safety Awards 2012.

The RoSPA awards are presented to organisations that have excellent health, safety and welfare management systems in place and can show continuous success in reducing accidents among employees.

The accolade is the eighth Gold Award for the service which has seen the total number of work-based accidents reduced from 208 in 2004 to 58 in 2012, a 72 per cent reduction. While vehicle-related accidents have dropped from 115 in 2006 to 46 in the last five years, a 60 per cent reduction.

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service Group Manager, Dave Orr, said: "Together the management and union representatives are committed to protecting the health and well-being of all of our employees.  The safety of our staff is of paramount importance and we are always looking at ways in which we can improve processes to protect them and the public that we serve.

"We have continued our commitment of providing dedicated health and safety themed training to all staff by introducing further training to corporate and control room staff. This has been improved further by delivering bespoke training packages which are directly relevant to specific areas of the back office functions. Health and safety training initially given to operational staff heightened their hazard perception and resulted in a continued reduction in accidents during operational activities. Building on this success it was decided to deliver similar training to all staff. This is paying dividends, as people are thinking more about their safety and it has helped us to significantly reduce the number of accidents at work."

The latest figures just published (April 2012−June 2012) show that the number of accidents involving Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue staff has reduced significantly again in the last quarter statistics. The number of incidents fell to the lowest ever number of five accidents.  Vehicle-related accidents also fell sharply to the lowest recorded figure of two minor damaged vehicles.

Chief Fire Officer Tom Capeling said: "We are committed to providing a highly effective emergency response service without compromising the safety of our staff. Winning the RoSPA Gold Award for the eighth time shows how highly we value the health and safety of all of our employees and is fantastic recognition for the teams who work with our staff to encourage a happy, healthy and safe workforce."

David Rawlings, RoSPA Awards Manager, said: "The RoSPA Awards programme provides well-deserved recognition for the winners and spurs on other organisations to raise their standards of accident and ill health prevention. We congratulate Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service on its success and encourage it, and all our other winners, to remain committed to safety and health, an approach that is well recognised to be good for workers and the bottom line."

 

Photo: Deputy Chief Fire Officer John Hindmarch, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, receives the award from RoSPA President Lord Jordan of Bournville CBE

 

Posted October 18th, 2012 at 1240 by Andrew. Comment by emailing: andrew.lynch@pavpub.com