OPITO renewal contributes to knowledge sharing

Every ESVAGT employee has to renew their OPITO certificate every third year. This maintains competence levels and ensures good knowledge sharing.

An OPITO certificate needs to be renewed every third year by an external assessor, and with more than 800 employees in its fleet, ESVAGT has a fixed agreement with Viking Saatsea to provide renewal testing for a group of colleagues at least once a month.

The test is a combination of theory and practical exercises:

“They need to prove they know their stuff,” says Ina Krusbæk Jützler, assessor at Viking Saatsea together with Keld Sørensen, assessor for today’s team.

To maintain competences, the crew are put through continual theoretical and practical training, which is registered online. The practical exercises are sent for approval to Viking Saatsea’s assessor team. As assessor, Ina Krusbæk Jützler watches from the sideline and from here can see that renewing OPITO approvals often brings new knowledge that can be used in daily training:

“It is really good to see that some of the things that we work with here are also taken out to the vessels. For example, at one point we showed course participants how to immobilise a standing injured person on a spine board. Shortly afterwards, this method appeared in a report as something that they had trained on out at sea. That is really important knowledge sharing,” says Ina Krusbæk Jützler.

Clear training

She can also see that ESVAGT is a shipping company that makes an effort in daily training, especially in colleagues who come for assessment directly from the vessel:

“They plough on as if it were just another training session. The high level of training is very clear during our assessments,” she says:

“It is also clear that ESVAGT works specifically to ensure that everyone can do their job. The training that ESVAGT works with ensures that everyone works hands on and that everyone can do any job. I could ask anyone in an ESVAGT crew where to find a piece of equipment in the hospital and they would be able to find it. For ESVAGT, it is important that the crew members do not get stuck in one role, but that they can supplement each other regardless of rank, vessel or work area. Multi competence training across the board ensures maximum knowledge sharing in ESVAGT,” says Ina Krusbæk Jützler. 

“Some are nervous about being “tested” but once they get going on the drills, they do it by instinct. Some exercises are based on realistic scenarios, which fits in well with the training ESVAGT crew performs on their vessels every day,” says assessor Ina Krusbæk Jützler.