Roche : Case Study

A leading pharmaceutical company has seen a near 20% fall in accidents over the last two years and complied with the latest health and safety ruling on duty of care following the introduction of driver training and risk assessment.

Roche UK, part of one of the world's leading healthcare companies, saw its claims frequency fall after bringing in risk management specialists Peak Performance to train and assess its high mileage, essential user drivers, in line with its corporate health and safety policy.

Roche, which is based at Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, runs a fleet of 300 cars in the UK and has a further 200 essential user drivers, who have chosen to take a cash allowance with which to finance a Personal Contract Purchase Plan and use their own cars for company business.

The company operates an open choice policy, with Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, and Mercedes the leading makes on its fleet, and drivers, mainly sales staff, travel up to 40,000 miles a year on company business.

Roche puts all new essential drivers through driver training with one-to-one on-road training sessions with Peak trainers, in line with the strong health and safety culture that exists in the business. This is followed by refresher training every two years.

The initiative applies to all essential drivers whether they have opted out or not, as the company believes it still has a duty of care to ensure they are trained even though they are driving their own rather than company cars.

"We have always been safety conscious," explained fleet manager Gill Shaw, "and with the latest Health and Safety Executive rulings covering at-work driving and work-related road risk, we wanted to demonstrate that we recognised our duty of care towards those of our employees who drive company vehicles as part of their duties."

"We also extended that to those drivers who have opted out of the company car scheme but are still using their own cars to drive substantial miles on company business," she said. "We are very pleased with the results - our primary aim being to protect and promote the health and safety of our employees. The fall in claims frequency is an added bonus."

"The one-to-one sessions provided by Peak Performance have been well received by our drivers, and we have been very happy with the excellent service we have received"

Gill Shaw
Fleet manager