12 November 2002 00:00 Powergen commits to H&S targets

Powergen has committed to an industry-wide initiative in response to the Government's plans to improve health and safety at work.

In 2000, the Government set out a new 10-year strategy for health and safety at work called ‘Revitalising Health and Safety’. This strategy set challenging targets for employers to reduce health and safety failures at work.

The Electricity Association, the main trade association for the UK electricity industry, translated these targets into ‘SAFELEC 2010’, which sets out how we as an industry will contribute to achieving the Governments targets.

Powergen is fully committed to achieving the SAFELEC 2010 targets. In summary these are, by 2010:

• A 50% reduction in the number of working days lost due to work related injury and ill health
• A 20% reduction in the incidence rate of cases of work related ill health
• A 50% reduction in the incidence rate of major and fatal injuries

In addition, half of the improvement under each target should be achieved by 2004.

Powergen has also made a commitment to achieving four Occupational Health targets, namely:

• To continue to seek improved methods of managing work-related stress
• To reduce the incidence rate of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD) by 12 per cent by 2004, and reduce the number of working days lost per 100,000 workers due to WRMSD by 15 per cent by 2004.
• To promote the development of better systems for collecting the necessary occupational health data to obtain a clearer picture of current levels of work-related illness within the Electricity Industry.
• To develop initiatives for improving rehabilitation back to work of employees off work due to ill health.