Safety at your service

You might think that only twelve people to man twelve different services, each needing several people could be a problem. Not for the DGS-SEE-SV Section! We can now reveal their magic formula.

 

From risk management to prevention and follow-up of accidents, from safety training to hunting for pollutants in buildings and providing safety input for calls for tenders, the DGS-SEE-SV’s services underpin virtually every aspect of CERN’s daily life.

“The section was set up in 2011 to meet the Organization's needs more effectively", explains François Angerand, head of the DGS-SEE-SV section. "For some activities, such as providing safety input for calls for tenders, our Section acts as an interface between the Departments and all the other services of the HSE Unit. In other cases, we ourselves provide direct support to the Departments.”

“Safety” is synonymous with “prevention”: the DGS-SEE-SV section's mission is precisely to provide professional specialised support to the CERN Departments with a view to ensuring a high level of safety. “Our section is consulted to assist the Departments to assess the risks linked to specific activities at work sites or to provide accident-analysis support to the Departmental Safety Officers (DSO)”, explains François Angerand. “We offer our support on safety issues whenever events are organised at CERN and, for instance, request the installation of temporary structures, or when new visits itineraries are being devised. Working conditions remain a priority but the section’s staff also deals with the problems of noise and ODH (Oxygen Deficiency Hazard) and is particularly heavily involved in the drafting of CERN's own specific safety rules.”

DGS-SEE-SV is also behind the redefinition and marking out of emergency evacuation routes at the PS and SPS prior to next year's restart of the machines. "We are working with the Territorial Safety Officers (TSO) to improve the emergency evacuation routes and the emergency signage at these facilities,” adds François Angerand. "To date, over 60% of the work has already been completed and our work is perfectly on schedule to be completed by the end of LS1.”

A service has recently been set up with responsibility for communication of safety issues and environmental protection: DGS-SEE-SV writes and publishes the Safety Bulletins, sends targeted safety alerts whenever a safety issue arises and, with effect from this edition of the CERN Bulletin, will also coordinate the publication of safety messages in the new "Safely Yours" section of the Bulletin. The first article in the series can be found here.

by Antonella Del Rosso