United Utilities wins ninth consecutive RoSPA Gold Award for health and safety

North West water company United Utilities has earned RoSPA’s Gold Award for the ninth consecutive year for the quality of its occupational health and safety.

The achievement means the company is just one year away from a decade of recognition by the UK’s leading accident prevention charity.

Organisations receiving a RoSPA Award are recognised as being world-leaders in health and safety practice. Every year, nearly 2,000 entrants vie to achieve the highest possible accolade in what is the UK’s longest-running H&S industry awards.

Julia Small, RoSPA’s achievements director, said: “The RoSPA Awards scheme is the longest-running of its kind in the UK, but it receives entries from organisations across the globe, making it one of the most sought-after achievement awards for health and safety worldwide.”

Abigail Milner from United Utilities’ health, safety and wellbeing team said “Organisations vying for RoSPA recognition are challenged on different aspects of their health, safety and wellbeing procedures every year. And this year’s assessment featured some tough questions on how we had managed to keep employees, customers and contractors safe during the COVID pandemic. United Utilities went above and beyond guidelines for protecting people during the pandemic, recognising the strain the pandemic was having on our workforce.

“All of our staff were encouraged and supported to create personal wellbeing action plans and broader than this, the company introduced additional assistance programmes to customers and our own employees facing sudden financial impact as a result of the impact of the pandemic. We know that financial difficulties are one of the five biggest contributors to poor mental health, so we felt it was an important step.”