Go Plant Fleet Services has become one of the first providers of specialist vehicles to be awarded a new international standard for Occupational Health and Safety.

The business has a network of depots and service centres across the UK, has been awarded ISO 45001 – a certification that demonstrates its ongoing commitment to maintaining a world class, safe working environment.

The standard, which replaces OHSAS18001, provides a structure that allows organisations to manage workplace risk and ensure compliance with legislation.

It’s designed to help maintain a safe and healthy environment for workers, visitors and anyone affected by a company’s activities.

Antony Draper, head of health, safety, environment and quality at Go Plant Fleet Services, said: “We place a huge amount of importance on health and safety across our entire business.

“It’s something that applies throughout own working environments and to those of our customers and suppliers.

“We work to best practice across our nationwide operation, our safety record is up there with the best as a result and we’re naturally doing all we can to keep it that way.

“Our achievement of the new Standard underlines that commitment to safety across the board and the fact that we’ve done so way ahead of the deadline is another illustration of how we’re leading the way in our industry.”

The certification, relating to Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, replaces OHSAS18001, which will be phased out by next year.

Many organisations have been working to health and safety standards laid down by their own countries.

The new standard was put in place in 2018 with the aim to deliver consistency across the world.

It differs from the previous standard by calling on companies to systematically define and monitor internal and external issues and look at conditions affecting their work.

It requires the determination of risk and opportunities that may impact the ability to deliver planned results, including the health and safety of employees during the job, and places increased emphasis on the leadership of the company to be more engaged and responsible.

Recently Go Plant Fleet Services appointed Phil Quelch, formerly national fleet and engineering director, as chief operating officer, which was a new role to help grow the business.

Last year, Go Plant Fleet Services took delivery of 37 brand new Johnston VT802 and VM652 machines in a deal worth more than £5.5 million