[A]mec Foster Wheeler has today announced that its teams at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria have achieved an outstanding safety milestone by completing one million man hours without a lost-time incident (LTI).
Sellafield Limited has praised the achievement by 150 Amec Foster Wheeler employees who carry out civil, mechanical and electrical engineering work, plus subcontractors and supply chain companies.
Simon McCrae, Head of Management of Contractors, Sellafield Ltd, said: “This level of performance demonstrates that Amec Foster Wheeler shares key values with Sellafield Ltd and our other supply chain partners, the highest of which is the safety of our workforces and the environment in which we operate.
“All of our employees and contractors have a part to play in continuously improving our safety performance. We thank our valued contracting community for their contribution and commitment to safe operations.”
David Boath, Vice President for Project Delivery and Health and Safety at Amec Foster Wheeler Clean Energy, said: “Maintaining our safety record is extremely challenging when you’re doing heavy construction work in a high-hazard area with extremely low-severity thresholds for incident reporting.
“Our people have achieved this remarkable milestone by setting and relentlessly pursuing the highest standards of safe behaviour in all aspects of their work.”
West Cumbrian charities and good causes have benefited from the achievement. Under the ‘Cracked it’ initiative, Amec Foster Wheeler celebrates good health and safety performance by making donations to local organisations.
Since the beginning of 2014, a total of £13,500 has been donated to: Wath Brow Hornets; Millom Infants School; St Bridget’s C E School; Bootle and District First Responders; Jigsaw Children’s Hospice; Friends of Seascale School; West Cumbria Group RDA; Sunbeams Music Trust; First Gosforth Scout Group; Howgill Family Centre; Maryport Inshore Rescue; Cleator Cricket Club; Young Cumbria; Maryport Boys and Girls Club; James Burns Wish to Walk; FUNd4US; Allerdale Girls FC; North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust; Cleator Moor ABC; Dearham Primary School; Autism Support Allerdale and Copeland; Lily Tyson – Beckermet; and Beckstone Primary School Cooking Club.
Since 2008, when the ‘Cracked It’ initiative began, £40,700 has been donated to local good causes.
Amec Foster Wheeler’s teams focus on safety through the use of safe systems of work documentation, pre-job briefings, and regular inspections. All managers, supervisors and engineers do two site inspections per month to identify and manage potential hazards such as working at height, manual handling or anything that might cause slips, trips and falls.
They also use an observation reporting system to record unsafe conditions and behaviours that might lead to an incident and also acknowledge and reinforce the safe behaviours that help sustain excellent HSE performance.
Risk assessments and pre-job briefs are also checked and updated as part of the inspections, ensuring that safety advice keeps pace with the situation on site.
