SPM Safety Programme Manager

A 75-year old man died in September 2007 when he selected the wrong gear in his car while parked at an Argyll and Bute Council car park on the pier at Dunoon. The vehicle mounted the edging, and in the absence of a continuous protective barrier, it fell approximately 3 metres into the sea below.
There was no risk assessment for the car park and no action had been taken to provide adequate edge protection to prevent incidents like this.
The council was fined £20,000. 19th August 2010

Anglia Lead Ltd of Norfolk has been prosecuted for failing to meet the requirements of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in respect of potential lead exposures to its workforce.
The company was fined £10,000 plus costs of £10,556, a director was also fined £10,000.
An HSE official commented: “Anglia Lead Ltd and its director failed to discharge their duties, meaning the company’s processes fell significantly below the expected standards required for working with the material.” 10th August 2010

New figures released today reveal that the number of people killed at work in Britain fell last year to a record low. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released the provisional data, which shows that 151 workers were killed between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2010 compared to 178 deaths in the previous year and an average number over the last 5 years of 220 deaths per year.

Judith Hackitt, the HSE Chair said: “It’s really very encouraging to see a further reduction in workplace fatalities in the past year. This is performance which owes much to good practice, leadership and employee engagement. No doubt the recession has resulted in lower levels of activity in some sectors and a decrease in the numbers of new inexperienced recruits has also contributed to this fall in fatalities.

“We should also remember that 151 families are mourning the loss of someone who last year went out to work and never came home. Being one of the best health and safety performers in the world means continuing to strive to drive these numbers down further - not getting complacent about what we’ve collectively achieved and recognising the new challenges as we emerge from the recession. “As with all health and safety statistics, today’s announcement is a combination of encouraging news about improvement but also a salutary reminder of the tragedies of lives lost at work.”

Despite the overall improvement, agriculture, the most dangerous industry in Britain, has recorded a sizeable increase in deaths. 38 workers died on farms in the last year, marking a disappointing return to levels of earlier years after a record low of 25 deaths in 2008/09.

Judith Hackitt added: “We are especially concerned to see the continuing high levels of fatalities in agriculture. “The fact that many of these lives have been lost in family businesses is a double tragedy. Not only have families been ripped apart, but businesses that have been handed down through generations have been ruined. “No industry can or should regard high levels of workplace death and injury as being ‘part of the job’. It doesn’t have to be this way as many other sectors have shown by their improvement.”

Large falls have been recorded in some of the other historically most dangerous industries in Britain:

·         41 fatal injuries to construction workers were recorded - a rate of 2.0 deaths per 100,000 workers, compared to an average of 66 deaths in the past five years and a fall from the 52 deaths (and rate of 2.4) recorded in 2008/09.

·         42 fatal injuries to services workers were recorded, a rate of 0.2 deaths per 100,000, compared to an average of 72 deaths in the past five years and a fall from the 62 deaths (and rate of 0.3) recorded in 2008/09.

·         24 fatal injuries to manufacturing workers were recorded, a rate of 0.9 deaths per 100,000, compared to an average of 38 deaths in the past five years and a fall from 33 deaths (and rate of 1.1) in 2008/09.

Judith Hackitt said: “We need the agriculture industry to recognise that it can address the problem and learn the lessons from these sectors. Improvements can be achieved even in any industry sector with leadership and by focusing on the priority issues.”

The new figures show that compared with the latest data available for the four other leading industrial nations in Europe - Germany, France, Spain and Italy - Great Britain has, for more than the last six years, had the lowest rate of fatal injuries.

Source HSE website 30th June 2010

On 6th April 2006, an admin manager employed by Roadways Container Logistics Limited, of  Stourton, Yorkshire, 2 cargo handlers and a supervisor were unloading cases of glass from an open top freight container at its premises.
As the final case, weighing approximately 2 tonnes, was being lifted from the container, the manager was crushed when he tried to stop it falling.
Investigation found that none of those involved had received the appropriate training in lifting operations, no risk assessment or formal planning was carried out prior to the incident and the case had not been properly secured.
Roadways admitted breaching S.2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 at Leeds Crown Court and was fined £250,000 with £100,000 costs. 25th May 2010.

On 10th September 2007, a member of the public was depositing garden waste at Biffa Waste Services Ltd’s civic amenity site in Newbury when he was crushed by a loading shovel bucket being used to flatten and drag waste away from the tipping area.
Investigation found Biffa had failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the garden waste tipping area of the site to ensure people other than employees were suitably protected, the loading shovel being permitted to work in  close proximity to members of the public.
At Reading Crown Court Biffa was fined £280,000 with costs of £54,906. 20th April 2010.

A worker was killed when unrestrained marble slabs toppled from their position on a trailer, 2 other men were injured in the incident. The 6-tonne load was parked on a slope on the road outside the premises of Marble City Ltd in Wandsworth, causing the stone slabs to lean towards the kerb. They fell shortly after the 3 men entered the trailer.
MCL had operated an unsafe system of work for unloading deliveries for several years. They should have insisted on deliveries being unloaded on flat level ground and ensured that the slabs were restrained at all times. One director failed to establish the delivery driver’s competence or brief him on the unloading operation, it was company policy to let only competent drivers be involved with unloading, but the driver was permitted to participate by claiming to have years of experience.
Marble City admitted breaching S.2(1) and S.3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 for which it was fined £100,000 with costs of £47,564.
Two directors also each pleaded guilty to 2 breaches of S.37 of the same Act 1974 by allowing their company to commit breaches due to their negligence for which they were fined £10,000 each. 20th April 2010.

Ashtead Plant Hire Co Ltd of Warrington, trading as APlant, has admitted breaching S.2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and been fined £200,000 plus £15,698 costs at Maidstone Crown Court yesterday in connection with the death on 16th August 2006 of a 55-year old employee in an industrial accident.
The deceased climbed on top of a stack of 2 accommodation units to help attach lifting chains so that the top unit could be lifted down, but he fell more than 5 metres and died at the scene.
Ashtead had a written procedure for work on top of accommodation units in its depots and at customers’ sites requiring the wearing of a safety harness and inertia reel line and the use of a secured ladder, but the workers at the depot had not been issued with this equipment or been trained to use it and most did not know the company had the procedure. 15th April 2010.

A workman died when his MEWP (mobile elevating work platform) overturned as he inspected a railway bridge in Stewarton, Ayrshire.
The accident occurred on Tuesday morning, the deceased was employed by a contractor. 14th April 2010.

A 25-year old employee of Regentford Ltd of Hackney fell from a scaffolding structure in February 2005. He had been re-pointing brickwork at a property in Croydon when he fell, sustaining head injuries from which he died some days later.
HSE maintained that the scaffolding was totally inadequate for the job and there was no one in effective control of health and safety on the site.
Regentford was fined £250,000 for breaching S.2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act etc. 1974 and must pay costs of £71,603. 9th April 2010.

Corus UK Limited, trading as Corus Special Profiles based at 30 Millbank, London, has been fined £5,000 plus £5,074 costs at Teesside Magistrates’ Court.
The company pleaded guilty to breaching S.2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974 and r.3(1)(a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The prosecution related to an industrial accident on 24th May 2008 at the Corus Skinningrove plant.
An employee, working on the mill floor where steel is rolled into long sections, was attempting to clear a jam in a machine, which requires an operator activating controls above the mill floor. The operator was unable to see the employee, so instructions were relayed via a 3rd man using a combination of hand signals and shouting, but he was struck by moving machinery, sustaining a leg injury.
Investigation established that relaying instructions in this way was common practice as radios were not always available and background noise made them difficult to use. There was no record of a suitable and sufficient risk assessment for clearing jams and no recorded safe system of work in place.
Corus had implemented safe operating procedures to deal with some of the risks, but had no safe isolation system, which had been identified as a requirement prior to the incident. 2nd March 2010.