Firm fined after health and safety breach

A paper recycling company has been fined £75,000 after a worker sustained multiple injuries after falling through a moving conveyor.  The incident took place in January 2018, with the unnamed employee sustaining serious crush injuries to his right leg as a result of the fall. Westminster Magistrates Court heard how the worker was injured whilst trying to remove contaminants from a paper load prior to it entering a baler.

HSE Bulletin: Lubrication of circuit breakers

Bulletin No:STSU2 - 2021

All duty-holders with responsibilities for operation and maintenance of High Voltage (HV) and Low Voltage (LV) circuit breakers (excluding LV MCCB's and MCB's), including:- Others: Specialist HV and LV Electrical Maintenance Contractors providing services that include  maintenance of HV and LV circuit breakers (excluding LV MCCB's and MCB's).

Contractor fined after employee falls from scaffolding

A shopfitting company has been fined after an employee suffered multiple fractures after falling fifteen feet from scaffolding.Manchester Magistrates Court heard how on the 24 October 2019, an employee of TA Knox Shopfitters Ltd was working from a tower scaffold at the front of the Footasylum Store in the Trafford Centre, Manchester, when the scaffold moved throwing him off balance.

Construction company fined after three contractors fall

A construction company has been fined following an incident where three contractors fell from height suffering serious injuries.  Three bricklayers fell approximately 2.5 metres onto a concrete floor sustaining serious injuries ranging from a broken back, a broken sternum to a swollen knee. The three workers fell through a temporary stairwell cover, which gave way underneath them because it had not been correctly fitted. The incident happened on 18 July 2018.

Concern about health and safety standards amid HGV driver shortage crisis

Until McDonald’s ran out of milkshakes and Nando’s was forced to close restaurants, the pressures in the transport industry were pretty much ‘off radar’, notes Dean Roscoe (CMIOSH), health and safety manager at Sovereign Transport Services. ‘But as an industry we’d been flat out for months.’  The UK’s critical HGV driver shortage – which has impacted supply chains across a range of sectors, notably medicines and food – has scarcely been out of the headlines in recent weeks.  B ut it’s a problem that has been brewing for some time.

Kitchen manufacturing company fined after worker injured by machinery

Kitchen manufacturing company Omega PLC were sentenced for safety breaches after a worker severely injured their finger in unguarded machinery.Sheffield Magistrates’ Court heard that on 8 May 2018, the worker was processing wood panels on an edge-banding machine at a kitchen unit manufacturing factory in Doncaster. 

Doncaster engineering company fined after worker diagnosed with occupational asthma   

Lantern Engineering Ltd was sentenced for health breaches after workers were exposed to metal working fluid (MWF). MWF is hazardous to health, and exposure can cause health conditions including irritation of the skin/dermatitis, occupational asthma, bronchitis and irritation of the upper respiratory tract.

New technology driving change in road safety

Since the 1980’s, the UK has seen considerable change in relation to driver technologies and practices, whether by introduction of and greater reliance upon telematics and ‘black box’ systems, to more recently the use of semi-autonomous and self-braking vehicles. Innovation and tech certainly appear to be creating a shift change, in terms of how duty holders and organisations are seeking to manage and control its work-related road risk (“WRRR”).

Employers must ensure workplaces are well ventilated to minimise COVID-19 spread

Businesses are being reminded that they have a legal duty to ensure that their premises have an adequate supply of fresh air in enclosed areas as part of a broad strategy to minimise the risk of the coronavirus from spreading via workplaces.  With most COVID-19 restrictions lifted, Great Britain's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has updated its guidance on ventilation and air conditioning as part of a package of preventative measures to help safely manage the increasing number of people returning to the workplace and to reduce infection risk. 

An annual gas safety check can keep us all safe

Gas Safety Week, from 13 to 19 September.  If we can take one positive from the incredibly challenging past 18 months or so, it must be the acts of kindness and neighbourliness that we have all witnessed, especially during the difficult months of lockdown.  From those who worked to keep essential services running to getting the weekly shop for our vulnerable neighbours or simply making time to chat, the sense of community, connectivity and collective care is one thing that most of us have wanted to preserve as we have emerged from those dark times.