Health & safety bulletins
6th November 2008
On Site Risk Assessments - Why Bother With Clearance Certificates?
All of our employees have attended the UK PIA safety passport course, but refreshing parts of it at times does us no harm.
30th October 2008
Use Of Safety Harnesses In MEWPS
At recent site meetings and audits, some employees have requested clarification on what action to take if a mobile elevated work platform (scissor lift) has no suitable anchor position for the lanyard.
23th October 2008
False Ceiling Collapse
Please see below an alert sent to us from Global Alliance. Although the incident did not concern an Xmo Strata site, it highlights a potentially dangerous situation, and offers advice on handling any similar occurrences.
The below photo was taken on one of our sites. It shows a section of false ceiling which collapsed.
16th October 2008
Mobile Crane Checklist
Earlier this year, we identified that any installation involving the use of a hiab or crane vehicle, was subject to additional risk that should be mitigated by further, specialised training.
9th October 2008
False Widow Spiders
False widow spiders (Steatoda nobilis) are becoming more widespread throughout the South and East of England, especially the coastal regions and Surrey. Reports have been made of sightings as far north as Gloucester. They are originally from the Canary Islands and Madeira, and were first identified in the UK in 1879, but did not become established until the 1980s.
2nd October 2008
Heras Fencing Warning Signs
At our safety time out on 25th January, all site teams were asked to cease work at 11.00am, look round their place of work and make recommendations as to what could be done to improve the safety of anyone on their site.
25th September 2008
Carbon Footprint
In March 2007, we embarked on a programme to initially measure and understand our company carbon footprint, and then set about reducing it.
18th September 2008
Global Alliance Newsletter
Please find attached self explanatory Global Alliance Newsletter.
11th September 2008
ExxonMobil August Safety Letter
Please see enclosed self explanatory ExxonMobil August Safety Letter.
4th September 2008
Building A Mobile Scaffold Tower
As part of our commitment to checking that our safe systems of work are compliant with The Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999, we have recently completed our annual review of our training requirements, job safety assessments, safety method statements and risk assessments.
28th August 2008
Driving Offences - Guidlines
Xmo Strata operates a no drink, no drugs policy as well as complying with current UK laws surrounding the use of mobile telephones and smoking in company vehicles.
21st August 2008
Safe Unloading of Vehicles
In January 2008, we carried out a risk assessment relating to the unloading of vehicles on site and our findings led to us rewriting our safety method statement / job safety assessment.
14th August 2008
Global Alliance Safety Alert - Cutting Incidents
Please see self explanatory Global Alliance European Safety Alert relating to cutting incidents, which we are pleased to fully support.
6th August 2008
Vehicle Records
Keeping track of fleet vehicle records can be time consuming and prone to error. This can result in missed service intervals, MOTs or Tax renewals, which not only have legal implications, but can be dangerous if serious safety checks are missed.
1st August 2008
Global Alliance Bulletin - Cut Hand
A refrigeration contractor recently suffered a severe cut to his hand.
24th July 2008
ExxonMobil July Safety Letter
We are one of the companies that are thanked in the latest ExxonMobil letter for our contribution to safety on Esso sites.
17th July 2008
BP Work Control Procedure - Visitors Book Completion
In January this year, we issued Bulletin No 72, advising that the Global Alliance had issued revised guidance to BP sites on signing-in procedures.
10th July 2008
Customer Safety Ratings
As you are all aware, our XmoMan safety management database maintains all training records, near misses and incidents (including details of basic causes, underlying causes, job factors and personal factors) and its trend analysis function is now used to generate toolbox talk and safety bulletin topics.
3rd July 2008
Incident and Injury Free - A Statement of Intent
At a recent safety meeting, Xmo Strata was asked to reaffirm the commitment of BP/Bovis Global Alliance to achieving an Incident & Injury Free (IIF) working environment, by sharing the following information with all its staff and sub-contractors.
26th June 2008
Safety Signs - Visual Standards And Positioning
Whilst re-branding a BP Dealer site, one of Xmo Strata's electrical engineers spotted a young lady using her mobile phone on the forecourt. He approached her and requested that she end the call, which she did without hesitation. She then went into the shop to pay for her fuel and as she came out, having thought about it, she asked our engineer if there should be signs indicating that this practice was dangerous.
12th June 2008
Global Alliance Safety Bulletins
The BP/Bovis Global Alliance have re-issued several bulletins as a reminder of the lessons learnt from previous incidents.
5th June 2008
Near Miss Follow-Up Action
On 1st May 2008, two of our employees, Geoff Upton and Scott Wilson were working on an Esso site (Moleside Filling Station). Whilst walking across the site, Geoff was almost struck by a fast moving car that had entered the site (the wrong way), through the site egress.
29th May 2008
Contractor Hit By Car
A contractor working on behalf of Esso was hit by a car. Vehicle traffic on our sites is one of our greatest hazards, always be sure to watch out for oncoming vehicles and wherever possible position your vehicle to act as a barrier.
22th May 2008
Global Alliance Bulletin - Serious Near Miss
Extract from a Global Alliance bulletin: This situation was captured of two of our Principal Contractor's staff. While one operates the forklift, his colleague is balanced on a pallet suspended on the forks. Both thought that getting the job done was more important than working safely. Neither thought to speak with the Site Manager first.
15th May 2008
Manual Handling Injury
On 5th February, engineers attended Mottingham Connect as a two man team to replace a faulty refrigeration compressor. During the removal of the faulty compressor one engineer complained of back pain and put an entry in the site accident book.
8nd May 2008
Global Alliance Newsletter
Please follow the link below to view the latest Global Alliance Newsletter. Please endorse our commitment to achieving an Incident & Injury Free working environment by remembering to address unsafe behaviour at source.
2nd May 2008
Electrical Connections To BP Fascia
We have recently had two reported near misses concerning the cabling to BP fascia.
24th April 2008
Signs In Hazardous Zones
We have recently had two reported near misses concerning signs located within hazardous zones.
17th April 2008
Advanced Driver Training
As part of our continual safety performance review process, we have identified that, particularly on maintenance jobs, as much as half our time can be spent driving to and from sites.
10th April 2008
Benefits of Near Miss Reporting
At this month's health, safety & environmental steering meeting, we reviewed the excellent progress being made by "most" field based teams on near miss reporting.
3rd April 2008
Managing Change
A recent review by Bovis Lend Lease has identified "Change" as a key contributor to many of the incidents reported to them.
28th March 2008
Fatal Fall
Xmo Strata was made aware of the following accident. A contractor was recently killed when he fell from height whilst working on an ExxonMobil terminal.
20th March 2008
Incident Alert
On 28th February, one of our re-branding teams was carrying out a routine operation at a BP site in Cheshire.
14th March 2008
Xmo Strata / Xmo Veritas Site Rules
The following rules are designed to enforce and educate our workforce to latest statutory regulations and Company policy and should be carried in company vehicles at all times.
13th March 2008
Unloading Delivery Vehicles
We have recently had cause to investigate the unloading of delivery vehicles, particularly access to and egress from the backs of high sided trucks and the manual handling of the loads.
3rd March 2008
Rest Breaks / Site Fatigue
There are now many published studies that investigate the correlation between work related fatigue, tiredness and accidents.
21st February 2008
Raising Awareness of Slips, Trips and Falls
Throughout February and March, Xmo Strata will be supporting a campaign on workplace slips, trips and falls run by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE).
15th February 2008
Exposed Electrical Components
The photos below show the situation that BP's electrical maintenance contractor found on a service station in Birmingham this week when they attended due to a reported electrical fault on the MID.
15th February 2008
I Chose To Look The Other Way
As you are aware, we are committed to achieving an Incident & Injury Free working environment by encouraging all employees to address unsafe acts at source. The following poem is very pertinent.
7th February 2008
Global Alliance Newsletter
Please follow the link below to the latest Global Alliance Newsletter. Please remember to address unsafe behaviour at source to prevent potential injury or property damage, and then report what you saw and what action you took; we can then demonstrate to our customers that we are supporting them by keeping people safe and delivering their safety message whenever we can.
1st February 2008
Hand injury
Xmo Strata has received a bulletin from ABB / ExxonMobil, detailing an injury that occurred on a site because protective gloves were not worn. Working on site without gloves is completely unacceptable, and ExxonMobil have now made it clear that there will be a zero tolerance policy to anybody found not wearing gloves.
25th January 2008
Urgent safety time out
At 11.00am on Tuesday 29th January, all Xmo Strata site teams are instructed to stop work for 20 minutes (wherever in the country they are working) to discuss and encourage all others on site, to break and think specifically about safety. Our Area supervisors will remind each team just beforehand and clarify any questions that are raised.
23rd January 2008
Visitor’s books
The Global Alliance has recently issued revised guidance to BP sites on signing in procedures. The guidance highlights what the store manager should be looking for from any contractors that want to work on their site.
17th January 2008
Safety helmet liners
We have recently been asked by site teams if they can wear warm woolly hats under their safety helmets. The common view is that this would prevent the safety helmet from doing its job, but during the winter we appreciate the working conditions are less forgiving.
9th January 2008
Weather warning
It is that time of year again when we have severe weather warnings issued regularly across the country. Today the met office are issuing a severe gales warning for Scotland, with wind speeds expected to reach 51mph and gusts of 74mph in some regions. In these winds it is it is inevitable that we will receive a large increase in call out’s relating to wind damaged signware (canopies in particular).
3rd January 2008
High vis jackets and vests
Recent HSSE inspections and site visits have found an increasing number of contractors wearing old, dirty or damaged high vis jackets and vests. With the arrival of winter, the need to be seen at all times is even more important regardless of whether you work on a construction site OR operational s/stn forecourt.