A CHESTER firm has invested £150,000 developing a new health and safety app.

As the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates the adoption of digital technology across industries and puts greater pressure on health and safety precautions Fusion Interactive Technologies, is set to digitalise and streamline traditional processes with its new platform.

The launch of the new platform comes as a recent study found that the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the adoption of digital technology across multiple industries.

Technology will also play a big part in transitioning to a ‘new normal’ across all sectors with retail, medical and manufacturing companies embracing tech and looking for new ways to ensure safety, efficiency, productivity, and profitability.

Paul Hollingsworth, co-founder of construction, civil engineering and property development company, Hollingsworth Group found that health and safety advisors would often request documents randomly on site and if the documents could not be presented, an improvement notice could be issued.

This gave him the idea to create an app for the company allowing all of his employees to have access to the latest documentation instantly via their mobile device.

From this original idea, Paul worked alongside brother Shaun, son Jac and director of digital agency Coax Creative, George Daly, to develop the Fusion Health & Safety platform.

Paul who is also now a founding director of Fusion Health & Safety, said: “At a time when companies are taking health and safety safeguards more seriously than ever, alongside the need for the implementation of remote technologies in the industry, we believe Fusion Health & Safety fills a much needed gap in the market.”

In a huge boost for the new platform, it has recently received interest from leaders in safety performance improvement, Safe Setters, which specialise in safety improvement for customers operating in high risk industries, including; renewables, construction, manufacturing and the public sector.

The platform has been in development for just over a year and just launched. Initially built with the construction and manufacturing industry in mind, the app has been designed to be industry agnostic, so is applicable across a range of sectors, including; transport, retail, health services, renewable energy and government bodies.

Paul added: “We wanted to make health and safety digital and truly believe that this platform can make a real, beneficial difference to how companies manage their health and safety systems. What the app currently does and what we plan for it to do will rapidly increase the productivity of the workforce and improve health and safety procedures moving forward."