Prolonged exposure to airborne particles of respirable crystalline silica (RCS) can lead to life-changing respiratory conditions such as silicosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease warns Britain’s workplace regulator.   As part of the Health and Safety Executive’s role as an enabling regulator it has recently refreshed its silica guidance for brick and tile manufacturing, stonework and foundries ahead of manufacturing sector focused inspections in autumn/winter and has an ebulletin to support this industry. 

A mining company has been fined £3.6 million after two electricians suffered severe burns in separate incidents.   On 3 August 2016 a contract electrician at Boulby mine in Cleveland – the world's only mine to extract organic fertiliser known as polyhite – unknowingly placed a vacuum cleaner nozzle into a live electrical chamber. He sustained serious burns from the 11,000-volt electrical system and had to be airlifted to a specialist burns unit, where he was placed in an induced coma for 10 days.

Two companies and two people have been sentenced after an 18-year-old construction worker was fatally injured while working on a house-build construction site in Boston, Lincolnshire.  P & R Plant Hire (Lincolnshire) Limited, D. Brown (Building Contractors) Limited, Brent Woods and Darrell Tripp were all fined following the death of Josh Disdel.  In July 2018 Mr Disdel, and another worker, both employed by P & R Plant Hire (Lincolnshire) Limited, had been tasked with clearing debris from manholes at a house-build construction site at White Bridges, Boston.

A North West roofing contractor has been fined after an employee fell from a roof ladder and died at the scene.  Roof replacement work was being carried out on a domestic property in Burnley by Richard Thornton, trading as Vanguard Roofing in May 2021. On the final day on site, an employee of Mr Thornton was climbing a triple extending access ladder on the roof, to reach scaffolding at eaves level, whilst carrying a pile of slate on their shoulder. They slipped and fell to the ground, sustaining fatal injuries.

A waste management company has been fined £190,000 after a contractor died when he fell seven metres while carrying out maintenance work.  The experienced maintenance contractor was part of a team under the control and direction of Wiltshire-based Hills Waste Solutions Limited. He sustained fatal injuries in the fall on November 18, 2020, while working on a mechanical screening and separating plant on the Hills Waste Solutions site in Stephenson Road, Westbury.

A property development company has been fined £8,000 for failing to adequately assess the risks involved in a refurbishment project, despite having been subject to previous enforcement action.  Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors visited a Daneets Developments Limited site in Bond Street, Blackpool, on 7 June 2021 during which enforcement action was taken in relation to general fire precautions, slips and trips, a failure to provide welfare, work at height, use of personal protective equipment, electrical safety, and potential exposure to asbestos.

A Devon-based timber company has been fined £80,000 after an employee fell through a stairwell while working on a barn conversion. The 49-year-old driver and warehouse operative, employed by Lamisell Limited, was working on the barn, which was being converted for rental use, at the company’s address near Okehampton, on 14 May 2018.

Two people have died and two others have been injured in an industrial incident in Devon.  Police and ambulance crews were called to West Country Concrete Products in Shebbear at about 15:25 BST on Tuesday 23 August where one man was pronounced dead at the scene.

A bus company has been fined £380,000 after one of its employees was crushed between a reversing bus and a stationary vehicle.  The employee of Stagecoach Devon Limited was working at the company’s Torquay depot on the morning of 3 October 2019.  Due to space limitations, it is reported that the buses often had to reverse to be able to leave the depot in readiness for the day’s work.

A carpentry and joinery company has been fined after a man working unsecured on the forks of a fork-lift truck fell 3.5 metres to the ground.  On 14 June 2021, the man was working for Staircraft Group Limited at their head office site at Bayton Road Industrial Estate, Exhall, Coventry.