Energy Health and Safety

We offer production-level services as well as business management and administration services. We supported a client in the petroleum industry with offices in London and Scotland.

During the pandemic, we assisted them in creating a COVID-19 risk assessment to ensure the safety and security of their staff.

This led to the development of a return-to-work strategy that was effective in helping their employees feel safe. As the pandemic subsided, we helped them transition back to the office safely and develop a hybrid working model.

We worked with a client who was moving from the R&D phase to the production of green hydrogen. They have a fast growth strategy with many safety and other risk implications. With sites across Europe and the UK, we started with an initial detailed health & safety audit which was scored against compliance and risk. We paid much attention to staff engagement using 1-1 meetings, open-door sessions, and surveys. Once the audit findings were presented to the board, we worked with our client to develop and integrate quality, safety and environmental management into the business development and production programme.

We spent time training the teams to work closer together and to develop synergies that would enhance the growth strategy. This included complex tasks including HAZOP analysis using a multi-disciplinary approach, and developing safe working practices.  Whilst they were familiar with HAZOP they had never considered integrating a specialist HSE Management practitioner into their team.

We can offer health and safety services for different types of renewable energy companies, including those providing windfarms, offshore wind and marine energy, solar energy, and more.

Ainscough Industrial are supporting the renewable energy strategy with the installation and management of windfarms. They understand the necessity for strong safety management and have robust systems in place as well as a safety behaviour programme. We have been working with them to identify their health & safety culture, which has required the senior team to identify key behaviours that cause risk and what safe behaviours they want to improve.

Our subsidiary, QCS International, has provided HSE Management services in the energy sector in Scotland and further afield for many years. An example is the support QCS has given to the clean energy division of Wood plc for over 10 years. Wood provide engineering, consultancy and project management services for renewable energy developments including wind, solar, hydro, biomass and wave. QCS supported Wood to achieve certification for their integrated management system for quality, environmental and health & safety management.

QCS also helped to design and implement an ISO 17025 management system to support calibration of energy output of renewable equipment. Post certification, our consultants continued to deliver services such as audits, health and safety inspections and system development. PHSC continues to support sister-company QCS and to provide HSE Management support to this customer.

Part of our commitment to clients is to help them develop HSE Management in the energy sector so they can be more self-sufficient. We can help your company to become more independent in terms of risk and safety management.

We have previously developed an interview process to recruit an HSE Management specialist for our clients, enabling them to have their specialist in-house. After recruitment, we can continue supporting your company at arms-length on any H&S needs.

Another successful tender application resulted in us supporting a client in this exciting and innovative energy sector. They needed support to develop their health and safety systems, as the business works with multiple energy providers who each work in their way.

The challenge is to integrate health and safety into the wider business practice, with buy-in from all parts of the business, to ensure consistency and quality of installations from all suppliers in a way that is safe for all.

Our client’s vision is aligned with our own – to lead smarter and greener lives. We helped to develop their organisational structure for safety and environmental management and our consultant supported the client to develop a proactive culture of ownership. Our consultant worked with their teams to develop coherent and workable policies and systems and helped their managers implement safe working processes throughout the UK.

One of our energy sector health and safety services is to advise the courts in criminal and civil litigation via our Expert Witnesses Services.

An example was a worker who was injured during an emergency evacuation drill in an offshore wind turbine. We reviewed extensive documents to establish a duty of care and the HSE Management processes.

We then compared this with what happened on the day and how the procedure deviated. We understand the space restrictions that operatives have to work in whilst maintaining equipment in the nacelle. Safety procedures are very detailed and need to consider the practicalities of space restriction. By investigating the accident in detail, PHSC identified what went wrong and why, and the simple changes in systems that should be made to prevent recurrence.