PPD SHE Management Committee – 12th November 2020 – Conducted via Zoom
Present: John Matheson, Garth Harris, Anthony Murphy, Maurits van der Grinten (PPD DSC), Dave Newbold (Chair & PPD Director), Terry Cornford (Secretary)
Apologies: Manny Olaiya
Pre-meeting discussion re working at home and self-assessment of work station at home. General agreement that following the advice and using your own common sense to make sure you are comfortable, take regular breaks etc. is the best way forward.
Actions from Last Meeting 18th August 2020
Completed and information added to Indico page.
Terry and Maurits have discussed and information has been gathered. Will be added to Information for Starters.
Staff have responded to reminders about completing mandatory training, not 100% yet but at 95% complete. Dave as department head is being chased to get all training complete. Staff should have zero excuse for not completing training. Link to APR mid-term discussions coming up. Maurits will send lists of training not completed to division heads.
Still outstanding. Maurits will ask Debbie to organise.
See later in minutes.
Ongoing
Matters Arising
Input to RAL SHE group due by end of calendar year.
Facilitating in person meetings, CR 25 use.
Level 3 operations – working well and well established. Online booking system working.
No office sharing, even between occupants of the same household. Avoiding staff-to-staff infection has so far been successful. Adherence to Covid measures in place is essential. See Maurits slides for Building Zones and Contacts for each zone.
Meeting Rooms: CR25 has been re-assigned for PPD use and a risk assessment has been prepared. PPD meeting room will also be prepared for meetings but being used as a drop off point for PPD deliveries at present. Risk assessment prepared for CR 25 will also apply to this room.
Increased occupancy levels on hold for present, but will go ahead eventually in small increments.
Boulby Status - Tony
Pre latest lockdown, occupancy levels had been increasing above and below ground, facemasks were implemented. Mixed reviews from mine stake holders, and some resistance to Covid measures, however they are slowly starting to use face masks in the PPD office and conference room. Following latest lockdown staffing back to 3 days a week and 3 people underground and 1 on the surface. Temperature checks are continuing at the main gate. Hopefully in 2 weeks’ time can open site up a bit more.
In the meantime there have been Covid incidents with regard to a couple of staff on site:
Maria who joined recently as contract cleaner had taken her mother, who has an immunity issue, to be Covid tested. As Maria was in the car, she was tested as well and tested positive for Covid. Maria was part of a team of 3 on site for Dark Matter day and had handed over her laptop to her colleague Chris. Maria self-isolated for 14 days and Chris did as well on the off-chance that he had picked up the infection.
Another colleague, Jimmy is involved in a local football club where several people have gone down with Covid. He has also self-isolated.
So overall the measures in place have worked well. In addition staff are even more vigilant when handing over equipment to each other.
CO2 monitors have now been received. So monitoring of rooms with more than one staff present now possible.
ICL have tightened up training activities and Tony has completed audit for them. They use fogging machines when cleaning the offices.
The mine owners have purchased a COSH system for use by PPD.
PPD DSC Report – Maurits
See Maurits’ slides on Indico.
PPD still has 5 actions outstanding:
1201 reporting of training – ongoing objective
1703 safety procedures for Boulby – reviewed recently
2001 safe phased return to work following lockdown – will go through to 2021
2002 online staff training – ongoing and being completed
2003 safety training needs to be identified in APR – ongoing, there is a technical issue with this
Comparison with spreadsheet shown last meeting in August shows a big improvement.
To be completed by the end of this calendar year. Needs to be agreed within the department. Group leaders and division heads to provide feedback. No red risks in the register.
Discussion about what risks should be included, risks in labs abroad with PPD staff, inclusion of risks to employee health, environmental risks and sustainability, a split of SHE register and environmental register.
Next RAL Safety Management Committee meeting will be 24th November 2020.
Success to be reported: PPD office booking system
Boulby successful Covid response
Issues of site-wide relevance: DSE training, DSE policy needs major review.
PPD Q2 report from RAL-SHE (See report in Indico)
Dave – there is absolutely no excuse for staff not to have done their SHE training. Terry to be proactive in chasing staff to complete training.
Any Other Business
John Matheson queried timing of access to clean room. Currently 7 am to 4 pm which is difficult for staff with children. This is a TD facility so will be difficult to change times.
Actions
Calendar
Each Meeting:
Once a year:
Communicate to SHE Grp names of Summer Students so as to exclude from Training stats.
Review Committee’s ToR.
Next Meeting
Date TBC, around February 2021.
Terry & MvdG 12th November 2020