Doctors managed to successfully reattach the thumb of a teenage apprentice after it had been severed off by a rotating blade.  The then 18-year-old resumed his apprenticeship with another firm following the procedure.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has formally appointed Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures UK (CROSS-UK) as the official Voluntary Occurrence Reporting System (VORS) operator for structural and fire safety until at least 2028.

An Altrincham-based construction company has been fined £165,000 after it repeatedly failed to put in place suitable fire precautions during renovation in Preston.  Glovers Court Ltd were found guilty of four offences in relation to the redevelopment of  a former city centre warehouse into 35 apartments spread across six floors. The Glovers Court project was under construction on 16 May 2023 when it was visited by Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS). A number of fire safety issues were identified and LFRS prohibited the use of the building, meaning residents already living there had to leave their homes.  As construction work was still ongoing, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service and HSE worked in multi-agency collaboration to deal with this premises.

A Norfolk-based food wholesaler has been fined £66,000 after an employee’s leg had to be amputated after he was injured while loading a lorry.  The worker was loading an HGV using a pallet truck at Osprey Foods Limited, in Holt, Norfolk on 5 July 2023.

The Health and Safety Executive’s provisional figures, released this week (2 July), indicate a decrease in the number of people killed at work and a drop in the leading cause of fatal injuries to workers.  The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) Work-related fatal injuries in Great Britain, 2025 report finds that a total of 124 workers were killed in accidents in 2024/25, a decrease of 14 fatalities from 2023/24.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector says it was “lucky nobody was killed” after four men were injured, including two seriously, when the first floor of a house collapsed during building works.  Aryn Stones Ltd had been contracted to build a new domestic property in Hampstead, north London. On 31 May 2022, remedial works were being carried out on a partially built beam-and-block floor when it collapsed, taking two of the workers down with it.

In May 2023, a customer fell to her death at the Langton Arms in Market Harborough, which is owned by RedCat Pub Company.  Julie Hyatt, who was aged 57, had been looking for the toilets during a Sunday lunch with friends when she opened the unlocked cellar door thinking it led to the restrooms and fell down an unlit staircase.

The Sentencing Council for England and Wales has amended its guidelines for health and safety offences, corporate manslaughter, food safety and hygiene offences in a move that some commentators argue could result in very large organisations (VLOs) being handed heavier fines.   Responding to the Sentencing Council’s updated guideline on 1 June, global law firm Eversheds Sutherland notes that when it was first introduced in February 2016, the guideline offered no upper limit or structured approach for sentencing entities whose turnover ‘very greatly exceeds’ the £50bn benchmark for a large organisation. 

There's no law for maximum working temperature, or when it's too hot to work, because every workplace is different.  No meaningful upper limit can be imposed because in many indoor workplaces high temperatures are not seasonal but created by work activity, for example in bakeries or foundries.  However, employers must stick to health and safety at work law - read on.

A housebuilder has been fined £800,000 after a teen apprentice was injured when a temporary stairwell covering collapsed.  Charlie Marsh, 17, had been working as a contractor on a Taylor Wimpey UK Limited site as it built around 450 new homes on its Meadfields site in Weston-Super-Mare.