24 November Warehouse Safety Pallets Warehouse Safety Pallets can cause serious injury. In this case, a falling pallet injures a worker. A long standing employee of a paper warehouse sustained multiple breaks to her leg when poorly stacked pallets of paper collapsed and struck her leg. She still suffers from pain and complications more than five years after the incident. The courts … Read More
24 November Construction Safety – Builder fined when spotted by passing HSE Inspector A builder was fined £2,000 and required to pay £400 in costs for a breach of the Work At Height Regulations 2005 (namely Regulation 6 (3): failing to protect the people he employed). The HSE inspector was passing a property and found two employees on the roof installing a dormer window for a loft conversion. … Read More
17 November Construction Health and Safety – HSE inspections reveal many problems Construction Health and Safety: The HSE is urging the construction industry (as a whole) to do better to ensure that basic health and safety measures are in place. This follows after a month long inspection initiative (22 September to 17 October 2014) that found 40 per cent of sites failing to protect workers properly. Unacceptable … Read More
18 October Corporate Manslaughter – case involving an apprentice A 16-year-old boy died after suffering head injuries after he became trapped in a lathe at a Greater Manchester factory. The 16 year old apprentice (Cameron Minshull) died after the incident at a factory in Huntley Mount Road in Bury in 2013. He started with the Company on 03 December 2012 and the incident that … Read More
23 September Fall from height leaves worker paralysed A Fall from height leaves worker paralysed from waist down Recently, Southwark Crown Court fined a construction company £110,000 and ordered to pay £16,620 in costs following a worker who suffered spinal injuries after falling eight metres through an unguarded window space, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. Read More
22 September Construction Industry HSE Site Visits Construction Industry HSE Site Visits – The HSE will be carrying out targeted site inspections from 22 September for a month. The HSE have announced: “Health as well as safety” and this is the message for this year’s Construction Initiative, as poor standards and unsafe practices on Britain’s building sites will be targeted during a nationwide … Read More
17 September Workplace Fire – in a Thailand Glove Factory A workplace fire broke out at a glove factory in Samut Prakan’s Phra Pradaeng district in Thailand on a Monday morning at the start of September 2014. There were no reports of injuries, though damage was estimated to be about 3 million bart. The fire spread quickly as gloves and socks in the factory fuelled … Read More
5 September Fee for Intervention – The first eighteen month’s experience In June 2014, the HSE published the report of the Independent FFI (Fee for Intervention) Review Panel. The Conclusions of the Independent Fee for Intervention (FFI) Review Panel Fee for Intervention (FFI) has satisfied the requirement that the cost burden of enforcement is shifted away from taxpayers and towards non-compliant duty-holders. The approximately £10m net figure … Read More
3 September Crane operator swung site cabin into colleague Crane operator swung site cabin into colleague, leading to injury and prosecution. The driver of a crane was prosecuted after he failed to plan a simple lift which led to his colleague being hit by a moving portable cabin. A lifting plan need not be complicated, but it must deal with the risks associated with … Read More
3 September Crane operator trapped by load A crane operator trapped by load (eight tonne block) in gap centimetres wide. A company which makes commercial vans has been prosecuted after a crane operator was crushed in a lifting operation at their Luton factory. The operator was working in the press plant in 2011 where he was lowering an eight tonne die block. … Read More