SES keeping staff safe in hazardous environments

As the Health & Safety Executive continues to raise awareness of the dangers of asbestos through its “Asbestos – The Hidden Killer” campaign, building services company, SES, talks about the proactive steps they have been taking to keep their workforce safe.

Tony Sidwell, SHE Manager for SES said, “SES is fully aware of the dangers associated with asbestos and view it as an extremely serious health and safety issue and it has been one of our key internal messages for the last 12 months”.

To underpin this activity an internal Asbestos Awareness course has also been created based on HSE and industry information, this course covers a number of topics which are viewed as important to help manage and control asbestos related issues, including:

·         How to recognise asbesto

·         The Control of Asbestos regulations, 2006

·         Various types of asbestos survey

·         Clearance of asbestos and associated documentation

·         Actions to take if asbestos is identified or suspected

To supplement this course regular “tool box talks” are systematically carried out on site to keep asbestos at the forefront of everyone’s mind.  More than 350 of SES’s site operatives, project managers and senior managers have completed the course so far.

Tony continues, “We started looking at this initiative more closely about 12 months ago when we realized that the new build market was beginning to slow down. At the moment, about 10% of our jobs are refurbishments (including schools, hospitals and universities), but in the current climate, we anticipate that there will be a notable increase in this figure over the next 12-18 months.

“Safety remains paramount, so it’s imperative that our project management teams are aware of the legal aspects of asbestos management, and that operatives know what they’re looking for and how to deal with it if they find it.”

SES’s Tony Sidwell, is a member of the Mechanical & Electrical Health, Safety & Environment Committee, which is made up of HVCA, ECA member companies and the Unite Trade Union. This committee advised the HSE on industry issues in the early stages of the “Hidden Killer” campaign.