Safety at Severnside

In-house, Severnside considers Health & Safety to be a line management function and has put emphasis on Health & Safety training. All site managers will have undergone a five-day general safety course provided by a recognised H&S trainer.

Additionally, all the regional managers have a Certificate in Safety Management, and the full time safety Advisor has a Diploma in Safety Management. The Health & Safety message needs to get to those doing the job, and all supervisors undertake a two-day safety awareness course, with the aim of passing this awareness on to the people they supervise.

All sites have regular Health & Safety meetings, in which all aspects of local and company wide Health & Safety can be discussed, and appropriate actions agreed. These meetings also provide input to the Health & Safety Action Plan that each site has to prepare annually, and progress on items in these plans is monitored. They also review risk assessments and safer systems at work.

As part of St Regis, Severnside is also included in the St Regis programme to formalise/introduce a significant number of Health & Safety policies that will raise standards across a wide range of activities.

A procedure for investigating the Root Cause of serious accidents has been implemented, which will be of benefit in identifying the underlying causes of an accident, rather than just the immediate cause. By involving more people in the accident analysis, it also improves awareness of the factors that cause accidents.

The accident record of the recovered paper industry is poor in comparison with the all-industry average, but Severnside is committed to raising standards and awareness throughout the organisation.