LOCAL COMPANY URGES FOR GREATER EMPLOYEE SAFETY WITH SWITCHGEAR HANDLING CAMPAIGN

Birmingham-based Wilmat Limited has recently launched a campaign to highlight the issues of employee safety when handling switchgear and low voltage circuit breakers. The call comes after research into how safe handling and regular maintenance of switchgear equipment can protect employees from electricity-related incidents. Statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reveals that 10 per cent of fatalities at work are electricity related. Accidents involving low voltage switchgear account for up to a quarter of these fatalities, and a third are due to bad maintenance practice. As Andy Capella, Sales and Technical Director at Wilmat Limited explained: “We’ve discovered that the safe handling of circuit breakers is an area that tends to get dismissed as unimportant or over looked completely. For example, research has found an inconsistency in the maintenance and service operations of switchgear across the industry. This is something that we felt needed to be put right.” To address these issues Wilmat Limited has launched a dedicated website www.switchgeartrucks.com and produced an expert guide ‘Handling Switchgear Safely.’ The guide has been developed out of the research findings to provide managers with good working practices from the industry, with input from the HSE. “The expert guide is just the start of the campaign,” said Andy Capella. “We want to raise industry awareness to the potential risks through mismanagement of switchgear maintenance. Our guide is the first step in trying to bring some regularity and best practice to the industry.” The ‘Handling Switchgear Safely’ expert guide is downloadable for free from Wilmat’s website www.switchgeartrucks.com. For more information on the expert guide contact Wilmat Limited on 0121 454 7514 x 1. - E N D S - Image’s to accompany this release: High res image to download for print: click here

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