Media and Crisis Management Ltd (MCM) was among the key speakers to 400 delegates at the RenewableUK Health & Safety 2012 conference in Manchester earlier this month.
Presenting at the session on Safety & Emergency Response in Offshore Wind, Matthew Sharp, Managing Director of MCM , told delegates that building offshore wind farms had already proven to be a hazardous operation. He explained that the lesson from those incidents for companies is that, while they can rely on excellent rescue or evacuation response from the emergency services, this was often the tip of the iceberg in terms of managing the incident. Companies need to have procedures and resource in place to support the longer term care that incidents often require.
“ We are retained to provide emergency response to offshore wind operators, constructors and maintenance companies ” said Sharp “ and our recent experience includes the repatriation of a critically ill Polish worker and a Lithuanian worker needing support and repatriation following a hospital stay .”
“ In both cases the workers were evacuated successfully by the emergency services but the lesson is that it is not their role to support victims in the long term. Managing each of these cases post-evacuation was time consuming and tested the experience and resourcefulness of those involved .”
“ It is only through careful planning and availability of the right resource that companies can support their people through an incident without disrupting normal operations. ”
With 667 corporate members, RenewableUK is the trade and professional body for the UK wind and marine renewables industries. The keynote speech at the conference was given by Judith Hackett, CBE, Chair of the Health and Safety Executive.
[mappress] Source: businesswire , February 17, 2012;