Tag: PDD

Knowingly Safe 24/7 Awards – don’t miss out!

Posted on by helent

Knowingly Safe 24/7 Awards, time to nominateThere’s now just one week left to nominate our Knowingly Safe champions for 2025. What’s more, there are eight awards to choose from.

Do you know someone who has gone above and beyond to keep us all Knowingly Safe? Well this is your chance to get them the recognition they deserve!

The window to nominate people for this year’s inaugural Project Delivery Directorate (PDD) Knowingly Safe Awards 2025 closes on Wednesday 21 May.

The awards will celebrate those working across Major Projects who go above and beyond to drive continuous improvement in our safety performance and those who have shown the Courage to Care 24/7 within the wider community.

The eight award categories:

  1. Knowingly Safe Champion – An individual who consistently goes above and beyond in ensuring they deliver their work in a Knowingly Safe manner.
  2. Knowingly Safe Supervisor – A supervisor who puts safety performance at the forefront of their duties when supervising their team.
  3. Knowingly Safe Team – A group of individuals who have consistently demonstrated Knowingly Safe behaviours during the delivery of their work.
  4. Knowingly Safe Rising Star – An individual early in their career who has joined the programme and made an immediate and significant impact.  They will have brought drive and energy to their role and demonstrated key PPP behaviours.
  5. Knowingly Safe Innovation Award – The organisation, team or individual who has proactively brought safety improvements and innovation through learning within their organisation or the wider industry.
  6. Boots On, Switch On – People Plant Interface Award – The organisation or team who have proactively sought out improvements and innovation in the area of PPI during the recent campaign.
  7. Courage to Care 24/7 Award – This award is to recognise the team or individual who demonstrates our Knowingly Safe behaviours and values outside of the workplace within their wider community.
  8. PDD Supply Chain Knowingly Safe Award – This award is to recognise the supply chain partner who have excelled in their demonstrable commitment to Knowingly Safe through everything they do (organisations are not required to submit a nomination for this award).

How to nominate

QR code to nominate for Knowingly Safe 24/7 AwardsNominations can be made by clicking the link here before the deadline of 21 May or by scanning the QR code, pictured left.

An independent panel will select the winners and runners-up with the results to be announced at the PDD Knowingly Safe Awards ceremony on Wednesday 11 June in B524.

PPP head of EHSSQ and assurance, James Lewis, said:

“Every step we take towards our goal of Knowingly Safe is made possible by operatives and teams who are visible, but equally those who quietly lead by example.

“These awards are a way of shining a light on their individual and team contributions – which are the backbone of our safety culture.

“Safety is a team effort across major projects and no contribution should go unseen. I look forward to reading the nominations and meeting the winners at the awards event.”

MEWP Standard is raising the bar

Posted on by Ursula Hutchinson

Bringing everyone home safely is a key objective across Major Projects at Sellafield – and the new Mobile Elevated Work Platforms (MEWP) standard launched by the Health, Safety and Wellbeing Hub, aims to do just that.

A Major Projects MEWP Co-Ordinators Engagement Day was held at Whitehaven Golf Club to bring together the Hub, PDD and PPP leaders, the supply chain and key MEWP suppliers.

The aim was to assess the new standard and see how it is being received and applied across the projects.

Within the construction industry, there are three times the amount of incidents involving Mobile Elevated Work Platforms (MEWP) compared to any other industry.

And we want to get ahead of that curve and ensure that everyone working with a MEWP is Knowingly Safe and the new standard will help ensure that.

By combining how we co-ordinate MEWP work, how we manage it through plans and procedures and then utilising the best technology available we hope to ensure that we can complete high risk work activities safely.

Following a fatality involving a MEWP during the construction of Everton FC’s new stadium, Jack Tomlinson (PPP EHS Improvement Manager), Karl Hine (Severfield EHS Lead) and Mark Atkinson (SRP Snr EHS Advisor) were asked to develop a spoke to work on MEWP management.

The spoke looked at best practice across the main Key Delivery Partners (KDPs) supply chain partners and the wider construction industry to come up with what is now the Sellafield Project Delivery Directorate (PDD) MEWP Standard.

The new standard looks at improved safety measures, using technology, a project specific MEWP management plan, increased operative competency and introduces new roles for supply chain MEWP Co-ordinator and project MEWP co-ordinators.

Duncan Elliott, Head of PPP, said:

“We want to give everyone a working environment to do the right things to make us Knowingly Safe and get the wider industry into a better place.

“It is about wanting to lead the industry but also there is a strong moral pull. In 2024 people are still being killed in the construction industry and that is unforgivable. We want to do something about that.”

Jack Tomlinson, PPP EHS Improvement Manager & MEWP Spoke Lead, said:

“Many people will remember the Government campaign about car seatbelts ‘clunk click, every trip’, launched at the time it was acceptable not to wear seatbelts.

“However because of targeted campaigns and technology, the use of seatbelts hit the ‘tipping point’ and now it is clearly unacceptable not to use seatbelts.

“We have used this approach to MEWPs. The technology is available and we must use it to bolster safe working practices during this high hazard task. I am exceptionally proud of the MEWP spoke’s work on this and it’s inspiring to see the leap we have made.”

Steve Harnwell, PPP Delivery Director for construction projects, added:

“We do a lot of work at height and part of that is using these MEWP platforms which, in itself, while safer, does present danger.

“This standard is to bring the best practice, best machines, best features in using technology with people to make people safer.

“That’s about being Knowingly Safe so people turn up at work and leave as they have arrived, back to their families.”