The Sector Safety Plan covers the traditional areas of physical safety – the strong evidence base, policies and procedures needed to continually address safety issues. But, crucially, the Plan extends to the areas of culture, mental well-being and health necessary to take safety performance to the next level.

Chair of Port Skills and Safety Tim Clarke commented that:

The Sector Safety Plan is about demonstrating leadership and commitment to health and safety in our industry together with practical concrete action. We can never be complacent and need to keep working on ways to make our workplaces safer. Port Skills and Safety is proud that port operators have come together to develop the Plan and of industry’s partnership approach on safety with Government, Regulators and Trade Unions.

PSS Chief Executive Richard Steele explains that:

The port sector plan recognises that keeping people safe in our industry needs to include health and mental health as well as traditional safety. By taking a whole person approach and creating a culture of empowerment that makes everyone a safety leader, we aim to ensure that everyone gets to go home safe at the end of their day.

PSS has also produced a hard-hitting video on the dangers of confined spaces and the required safe working procedures.

Richard Steele continued:

Confined Space accidents have cost many lives at sea and in ports around the world. This training video was previously only available to PSS members, but we have chosen to make it available to all, to help improve safety standards in the UK and beyond.

The ports Sector Safety Plan is being launched as part of the Department for Transport’s Maritime Safety Week. Maritime Safety Week is a specific week that provides the opportunity to recognise and highlight all the excellent safety work that goes on across the Maritime sector, to focus on key specific challenges that the sector faces and to facilitate sharing of knowledge, experience and best practice.