NEWPORT COMPANY HELPS TO DEVELOP UK’S FIRST EMERGENCY RESPONSE NVQ

Employees at a Newport chemical company with an exemplary safety record have become the first in the UK to receive a formal qualification in responding to emergencies.

The brand new NVQ Certificate in Emergency Response has been awarded to seven employees at Solutia UK, which has helped to develop the qualification after taking part in a pilot project in conjunction with the awarding body, PAA /VQSET, and the chemical industry’s sector skills council, COGENT.

The qualification has been hailed as a huge success, with 14 other candidates at Solutia already studying for it, and other companies due to offer it to their employees within the next few months.

Solutia employs 164 people and manufactures a range of chemicals on its site in Corporation Road, Newport, which go into products as diverse car windscreen safety glass, paints, floor coverings, varnishes and washing powders, as well as water treatment products and heat transfer fluids. It has been an accredited centre for NVQ schemes for 12 years, and has its own accredited NVQ assessors and an NVQ internal verifier.

The company was asked to pilot the scheme in October 2007 when it was presented with the outline qualification for review. Testing it against the procedures of the company’s existing, well established Emergency Response Team, it worked with the awarding body to develop the NVQ standard.

To pass the award, candidates have to demonstrate their competence in three broad areas of knowledge of emergency procedures, how to control emergencies and critical situations, and team working.

Solutia’s HR manager Paul Phillips said he was delighted that Solutia had been able to combine its emergency response expertise with its capabilities in working on NVQ frameworks to produce a valuable qualification.

“We are a chemical company which works with potentially dangerous substances, and have extremely high standards of operations and emergency response procedures,” he said.

“The benefits of this award are to both the individuals and to the company. The individuals get formal recognition for their ability in this field, whilst Solutia can demonstrate to external agencies including the regulators, that it takes such matters extremely seriously and can prove the competence of the response team to meet a national standard.”