This NSAPI accredited petroleum training course will develop your company’s permit to work systems and procedures.

It focuses on:

• Commonality in failings
• Hazards within the industry
• Silent killers such as asbestos

Petroleum training courses

Candidates on this half day petroleum training course will gain invaluable experience about what’s happening at your site’s coalface.

We’ll build on the Health and Safety Executive’s definition of core roles and look at how they should be integrated into your site’s permit to work process.

Find out more about our NSAPI permit to work petroleum training courses, including:

• NSAPI – Permit to Work

The Process Safety Leadership Group (PSLG) says workplace competency is a combination of “practical and thinking skills, experience and knowledge”.

While this is an excellent reference to the ‘ability’ of workers to perform tasks, two key compounds are missing from the mix.

The secret ingredients

‘Understanding’ and ‘attitude’ draw a clear line in the sand between good and bad workplace competency.

This may seem simple. But worker behaviour is always the driving force behind the application of “practical and thinking skills, experience and knowledge”.

Let’s pull these elements under the microscope:

	Skill = compromises practical and mental aptitude to carry out the task at hand, to a recognised standard, on an unwavering basis.
	Experience = develops over time as we become familiar with processes and tasks. Be careful, though. If good practice can be embedded into your daily work routine, bad habits may also creep in. Luckily, habits can be broken.
	Knowledge = the ability to undertake specific tasks, in the right order, with the correct resources. It can be derived through classroom-based and onsite training as well as continuous development within the workplace.
	Understanding = a deeper aspect of knowledge. It represents individual awareness of the consequences of the actions you take, be those good or bad.
	Attitude = Attitude plays a huge role in the delivery of safe process operations. It is influenced by a variety of factors including personal aspects of our lives that may affect concentration and the impact of others on your work performance.

Stirring the competency melting pot

‘Skill’, ‘experience’ and ‘knowledge’ are key attributes in the competency melting pot. We must always remember, though, that any competence regime relies on worker performance being consistent at all times – this is underpinned by ‘understanding’ and ‘attitude’.

Good workplace competency is not just about a one off review, observation or audit. It lays the foundations on which safer performance is built and embedded in an organisation, its culture, workers and business. That’s why we have to get it right.

By integrating this formula into training courses and competency assessment programmes, we can provide industry with the assurance that delegates achieve the highest standards.

This view is shared by the Health and Safety Executive. A recent HSE survey revealed one third of all accidents in the chemical industry are maintenance related – the largest single cause being a deficiency in their permit to work systems.

This underscores the need for contractors entering your site to be operationally competent in all tasks they carry out.

You’d think twice about inviting a plumber into your home who wasn’t Gas Safe Registered, so surely the same applies to workers on your site – you should always be able to expect a certain level of competency from them.

Petroleum training courses

At RTS, we’ve just undertaken some work with Cogent to develop introductory petroleum training courses for contractors to expand their knowledge and understanding of the downstream environment.

Find out more about our NSAPI permit to work petroleum training courses, including:

• NSAPI – Permit to Work
• NSAPI – Process Safety in a Bulk Liquid Environment

This half-day petroleum training course provides delegates with an understanding of the role process safety plays in the bulk liquid warehousing and process environment.

Petroleum training = good process safety

Delegates attending the NSAPI petroleum training courses will learn:

• process safety fundamentals
• operational aspects of process safety
• process safety awareness

This petroleum training course is designed to help you comply with national regulations by developing safe operating procedures and better process safety.

Find out more:

• NSAPI – Process Safety in a Bulk Liquid Environment

The PSLG membership comprises: HSE, Environment Agency, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, UKPIA, Tank Storage Association, British Pipeline Agency, Chemical Industry Association and Unite the Union.

Following on from the work carried out by the Buncefield (MIIB) the Process Safety Leadership Group has published its final report which specifies the minimum standards of safety for all UK storing large volumes of gasoline.

The Report “Safety & Environmental Standards for Fuel Storage Sites” provides comprehensive guidance in addressing all 25 recommendations of the MIIB’s final report on the design & operation of fuel storage sites.

To download a copy of the PSLG Final Report ‘Safety and Environmental Standards for Fuel Storage Sites’ click here

Classrooms, conference facilities and simulated industrial environments pave the way for an expansion of our range of accredited qualifications. We’ve also parachuted more ‘open’ courses into the mix alongside client specific programmes.

Opening the door to workplace safety

To-date, our main focus has been on-site training. But experience shows many companies like to have just two or three staff trained – so there’s strong demand for an open approach.

CATCH is the perfect breeding ground to respond to this demand. Process units, control facilities and process areas are ideal for our Permit to Work and risk assessment programmes, providing delegates with realistic, hands-on experience and better results.

With our old home at Europarc Innovation Centre now firmly in the rearview mirror, pop along to CATCH where we are currently holding open courses for fire safety training.

Course Dates at CATCH Stallingborough:

Enquire

Delivered by experienced trainers, the aim of the project is to improve workplace fire safety by helping your business comply with national laws.

As part of the open courses, delegates can gain understanding and qualifications in:

• CIEH Level 1 Award in Fire Safety Awareness
• CIEH Level 2 Award in Fire Safety Principles

Successful candidates will come away with:

• accredited qualifications in fire safety training
• the ability to comply with current fire safety legislation

Open Course Dates at CATCH Stallingborough:

Enquire

Incapacitation means that the worker is absent or is unable to do work that they would reasonably be expected to do as part of their normal work.

Employers and others with responsibilities under RIDDOR must still keep a record of all over-three day-injuries – if the employer has to keep an accident book, then this record will be enough.

The deadline by which the over-seven-day injury must be reported has also increased to fifteen days from the day of the accident.

A new leaflet Reporting accidents and incidents at work explains the change.

It will give a wider range of learners the opportunity to get the qualifications they need, in a way that suits them. QCF qualifications are designed with the help of employers so learners can be assured that they’re gaining skills that employers are looking for.

The QCF:

• Recognises smaller steps of learning and enables learners to build up qualifications bit by bit
• Helps learners achieve skills and qualifications that meet industry needs
• Enables work-based training to be nationally recognised

Qualification Structure & Sizes

All qualifications in the QCF are built up from smaller units of learning, with each unit having a credit value.

QCF Qualification Structure

Figure 1 – QCF Structure

Credit Values represent how long a unit is expected to take – Each credit value equates to approximately 10 hours of learning

Units in the QCF are assessed individually but allow cross-referencing of evidence so work can be assessed for more than one unit at the same time

Qualification Size (How long it takes)

There are three sizes of qualification

• Award – 1 to 12 Credits (10 to 120 hours of learning)
• Certificate – 13 to 36 Credits (130 – 360 hours of learning)
• Diploma – 37 Credits or More (370 or more hours of learning)

Remember:

• The hours are approximate learning hours and may be less
• Work based training may count towards the learning hours

Qualification Level (How difficult it is)

There are 9 levels with the QCF which indicate the difficulty of the qualification these range from Entry level through to level 8.

QCF Qualification Levels

Qualification Titles

The title of a qualification should indicate its difficulty, how long it will take the average learner to complete, and its general content, using the following information:

• Qualification level (from lowest, entry level to level 8 at the top)
• Qualification size (award/certificate/diploma)
• Content of the qualification

For example

• Level 2 Diploma in Bulk Liquid Operations
• Level 2 – Qualification – (Equivalent to GCSE A* – C)
• Size Diploma – So it is at least 37 credits or more indicating a notinal learning time of 370 hours
• Content – Bulk Liquid Operations – (Indicates the area of work the qualification is directed at)

QCF Regulatory Body

The QCF is a regulated framework. Ofqual is responsible for regulating the framework, together with its partner regulators in Wales (the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills or DCELLS) and Northern Ireland (the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment or CCEA).

The Qualification and Credit Framework (QCF) will eventually replace the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).

The Health and Safety Executive is talking about it; industry is talking about; and, here at RTS, we’re doing something about it.

Our NSAPI validated course for process safety in a bulk liquid environment underpins the academy’s and HSE’s drive to raise the knowledge and skills base of process operators.

The importance of petroleum training

HSE chair Judith Hackett, speaking earlier this year at the National Skills Academy Conference: Raising the Bar on Process Safety, called on industry to put process safety atop of the agenda. By learning the lessons of yesteryear, she said, we can reduce the risk of avoidable incidents in the future.

Indeed, we can actively reduce the recurrence of Buncefield/ Texas City moments by driving forward process safety performance at all levels of the operational spectrum.

In giving her closing remarks, Judith Hackett revealed that the HSE receives around 100 loss of containment reports every year from Comah sites.

Of these incidents, around 50 fall into Dangerous Occurrence category under RIDDOR (the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations).

Based on these statistics, around one loss of containment incident occurs each week which could easily lead to greater consequences as displayed at Buncefield and Texas City – a clear rallying call for us all to vote in favour of process safety management.

Processing the safety challenge

With approximately 1000 lower and top tier Comah sites in the UK, the scope and reach of process safety management needs to be wider.

Industry and health and safety providers, such as RTS, are at the forefront of this drive. We must work together to improve the fundamental aspects at the coalface of operations, supporting supervisors and managers in delivering a safe process environment.

Find out more:

• NSAPI – Process Safety in a Bulk Liquid Environment