Health and safety

Health and safety is at the heart of our corporate responsibility. Protecting our employees, contractors and all visitors from injury is fundamental to our business philosophy. We are committed to developing and maintaining a positive health and safety culture in which statutory requirements are viewed as a minimum standard and leading performance as our goal.

Personal safety statistics

Notes:

(1) Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations.

Attaining leading performance

The lost time injury rate and total recordable injury rate for 2011 at 0.08 and 0.10 respectively, remain industry-leading, with the latter a record breaking achievement at the power station since the measure was first recorded in 2005. Maintaining this level of performance is commendable given the significant construction work that took place during the year and number of man-hours worked, which at the Drax Power Station site totalled some 3 million. Our safety record continues to compare very favourably with that of our sector peers and international benchmarks. Amongst global comparator coal-fired power stations we are ahead of the European and World Pacesetter group for total recordable injury rate, which is a clear indication that the safety management system implemented in the last few years is delivering sustained levels of performance.

We have been successful in retaining certification of our Health and Safety Management System to the internationally recognised Occupational Health and Safety standard, OHSAS 18001, at the Drax Power Station site and we have attained certification for the our straw pellet plant, based at Goole in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Drax Power Station is one of a select group of large coal-fired power stations in the country to hold this standard, which is approved by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance.

In addition to this, we were delighted, once again, to be awarded the RoSPA Gold Medal Award having achieved Gold Award standards for seven consecutive years.