Best Members' Collaboration Awards Entry: Dover Harbour Board and P&O

Award Nomination:

Through effective communication and collaboration learning from a serious incident onboard a vessel was shared with numerous parties including the Port in which it was berthed. This learning was reviewed and extended to land based scenarios and shared to Port employees. 

This demonstrates the effectives of collaborating and sharing of learning to improve safety outcomes. 

On 11 July a serious incident occurred aboard the Spirit of France whereby a Deck Hand narrowly avoided serious injury after being knocked over by an HGV. 

This incident was thoroughly investigated by P&O and a meeting recording shared as a learning moment within P&O and all ships were instructed to do a stand-down.  P&O also shared this with MAIB, Irish Sea Safety Forum, CHIRP and other ferry operators. CHIRP has published it as a bulletin and PSS shared this to members via You Tube. 

P&O also shared the learning moment with Port of Dover as the vessel was berthed in port at the time of the incident. 

Port of Dover reviewed the footage and outcomes and related the incident to scenarios associated with port activities and shared the extended learning through issue of a Safety Alert highlighting the location of blind spots of large vehicles, to ensure people place themselves in a safe position, that eye contact should be maintained with drivers and not to turn their back on traffic. 

The collaboration shown by P&O enabled learning to be adapted and shared to other similar scenarios. 

Additional Information

Through effective communication and collaboration learning from a serious incident onboard a vessel was shared with numerous parties including the Port in which it was berthed. This learning was reviewed and extended to land based scenarios and shared to Port employees.  This demonstrates the effectives of collaborating and sharing of learning to improve safety outcomes. 

On 11 July a serious incident occurred aboard the Spirit of France whereby a Deck Hand narrowly avoided serious injury after being knocked over by an HGV.  The Deck Hand had positioned himself at the front of the HGV immediately below the driver and so was unseen.  The Driver mistook a signal to commence water supply as his signal to move forward to disembark the vessel.  The deck hand was immediately knocked to the ground in front of the front wheels of the HGV.  Crew members and other HGV drivers alerted the driver to the situation and he immediately stopped avoiding running the deck Hand Over.  The Deckhand was shaken but suffered no injuries. 

This incident was thoroughly investigated by P&O and a video learning opportunity shared within P&O and all ships were instructed to do a safety stand-down. 

The Learning Opportunity was also shared with MAIB, Irish Sea Safety Forum, CHIRP and some other ferry operators. CHIRP has since published this as a bulletin and PSS shared this to members via You Tube. 

P&O also shared the learning opportunity with the Port of Dover as the vessel was berthed in the Port at the time of the incident. Once received Port of Dover reviewed the footage and outcomes and related the incident to scenarios associated with port activities and shared the learning through issue of a Safety Alert highlighting blind spots of large vehicles using a French road safety advertisement campaign video to illustrate the location of blind spots and to remind those working in the vicinity of vehicles, to ensure they are placed in a safe position, that eye contact should be maintained and not to turn their back on traffic. 

It is common and in respect of MAIB incidents, required, to share learning from accidents.  This incident did not cause significant injury, however the seriousness and potential severity was recognised and so the investigation was undertaken accordingly. 

By reviewing the learning identified for vessel crew Port of Dover recognised that although their personnel were not directly involved in the activities leading to this incident, there are a number of activities undertaken across Ports where similar incidents could arise.  The sharing of the learning and expansion to port activities was a timely reminder and real life scenario that highlighted the potential for injury helping to bring the safety messages home to employees.  To date there have been no incidents of a similar nature within the Port. 193 employees engaged with the internal release alone, many more will have seen the posters in the work place and across the ports industry further numbers will have engaged through the videos shared by P&O and  PSS.