HomeSafe, the Group’s flagship health and safety programme
Ensuring our people go home safe to their families every day remains at the heart of our HomeSafe programme. We have made progress on each of the four cornerstones of our strategy supporting our people and reducing risk. The four cornerstones - Process Safety, Occupational Safety, Occupational Health and Wellbeing, and Security - ensure HomeSafe manages risk in all areas of health, safety and wellbeing.
The four cornerstones are delivered through visible leadership, ownership and engagement. Combining these elements has seen improved risk management, collaboration and engagement.
Process safety
We have placed a relentless focus on improving controls to assure mitigation of the risks of some of our higher hazard activities with a particular focus on eliminating high hazard chemicals, and upskilling teams who work with and near potentially explosive atmospheres. We have introduced the concept of Potentially Serious Incidents or Fatalities (PSIF) to increase near miss reporting and focus learning on those areas with higher impacts. This approach is in line with other water companies across the UK to collaborate on learning opportunities, reducing risk in the sector.
Occupational safety
We continued our engagement with teams through our HomeSafe Live events. We held interactive scenarioled sessions focused on situational awareness and the importance of making the safest choice.
Our Site Pride Initiative continues to drive the highest levels of standards at operational and office locations, and work vehicles.
We continued our established events including the annual HomeSafe advent calendar where teams use fun, engaging ways to deliver serious health and safety messages to the Group, with over 10,000 views of these materials on the website, providing high levels of penetration.
Occupational health and wellbeing
We joined water sector colleagues for the annual Movember Campaign, with Pennon raising £6,000 for the research into men’s health. We held several Cancer Survivor Video presentations to increase awareness. A new Women’s Health Employee Network Group was launched, sitting alongside the 11 other Health & Wellbeing Groups, including Neurodiversity Representation, Mindfulness and Menopause Support. A specific Men’s Health Group was launched in March, and we have expanded our Employee Assistance Platform (EAP) offering and implemented this into the SES business.
Security
This year’s Security and Emergency Measures Direction (“SEMD”) return was developed with heavy engagement with the internal and external stakeholders and regulators, at all stages. We have driven Security culture across the Group through numerous engagement campaigns. The Group is on track with its undertakings in line with agreed milestones and investment plans to improve security and emergency planning capability.
Our HomeSafe 2030 strategy continues to shift our focus towards leading measures, skills, competencies, assurance and positive actions, setting clear expectations across the Group to ensure everyone goes HomeSafe every day.
In the year we delivered a stable year in terms of total injuries, however over the winter period we had an increase in the number of short duration lost time incidents, almost exclusively as a result of a slip or trip. Consequently, our number of lost time incidents and our Lost Time Incident Frequency Rate (“LTIFR”) increased. We ended the year at 28 lost time incidents, with over half of these happening between December and March. Our LTIFR increased from 0.24 to 0.39. We have developed re-energising plans for the new year to address this, reconnecting people to the emotional elements of why HomeSafe is so important to everyone at Pennon.
