South West Highways, the Exeter based highway maintenance, civil engineering and building contractor, has donated a record £916 to Devon Air Ambulance following its annual campaign to improve health and safety across the business.

The company has pledged to donate £1 for every Safety, Health, Environment or Quality (SHEQ) event (otherwise known as ‘near misses’) reported by employees. SWH recognises the link between the number of SHEQ events reported and a reduction in health and safety incidents and issues monthly updates to employees and reminders to continue to report events throughout the year.

SWH has been supporting DAAT as its chosen charity since 2008. Employees have repeatedly selected DAAT as the charity they would like the company to support each year. DAAT has two air ambulances providing a life-saving emergency response service in the region but must raise £5.5million each year to keep their helicopters flying.

Tracy Owen, Fundraising Manager for DAAT said: “We would like to thank SWH for their continued support over the past four years with their Near Miss Campaign. We think this is a fantastic campaign in which SWH are proactively making a safer working environment by encouraging their employees to report all health and safety issues. To date we have received over £4,146.87 from SWH’s Near Miss Campaign which is an incredible amount to have raised and we are extremely grateful.”

Richard Towl, Managing Director, said: “It’s really important to us that all employees work in a safe environment and we encourage everyone to report ‘SHEQ Events’ – situations that they feel have the potential to cause damage to safety, health, quality or the environment. This could be things that affect our employees, subcontractors or the communities we work in. The Senior Management Team reviews all reports so rest assured that they are taken seriously and we all learn from them.”

If you would like your business to support Devon Air Ambulance, or if you think your colleagues would be interested in fundraising for us, then do contact us and we'd love to hear from yo. You can also read more inspiring corporate supporter stories.