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Posts Tagged ‘health and safety at work’
The bookmakers which was raided by an armed gang, was fined £10,000 for failing to increase security prior to the attack, despite being told to do so.
Two female workers were opening William Hill, in Fleetwoods Lane, Netherton, on the morning of April 17 last year when a man armed with a knife burst in and ordered the terrified staff to hand over cash. One of the workers suffered a whiplash injury after being dragged to the floor during the attack.
The bookmakers had been visited by Sefton Council health and safety officers months before the raid, who had reported a number of safety concerns. Issues with poor outside lighting, CCTV and an insecure alley running between the bookmakers and a pub next door.
Health and safety specialist tutor at BSI, Tim Sparey, has carried out research into the relative benefits and drawbacks of implementing the occupational health and safety management standard, BS OHSAS 18001.
The core objectives of Sparey’s research were to determine whether the implementation and management of the requirements of BS OHSAS 18001 can improve the health and safety performance within organisations, and whether levels of incidents and risk can be reduced.
A total of 788 UK sites with management systems certified to the 2007 version of the standard was asked to complete a survey, with 131 responding. Some 43 BS OHSAS 18001 assessors also completed the survey.
David Lummis, Chief Executive Officer at the British Safety Industry Federation (BSIF), discusses the ongoing changes taking place within the UK’s health and safety industry and questions whether some of these decisions will have a negative impact on the profession!
The UK’s health and safety industry may conjure up a number of thoughts to you – protecting people at work from injury, using safe operating practices to ensure staff safety, protecting your best interests and generating future profits, to name but a few. Alternatively, perhaps you might think of the ‘elf and safety’ jokes that are so frequently touted by the newspapers or the unspecified ‘burden’ that current legislation is alleged to place on organisations. However, whether these thoughts are positive or negative, the fact remains that responsible health and safety practices within an organisation can and do save lives and prevent injuries.
Whatever stance you take, this has probably been swayed by your experiences in the workplace with the health and safety practices installed. You will have witnessed your colleague’s attitudes on the subject – positive or negative – however if a workplace accident occurs, the ‘spotlight’ will of course shine on the negative.
A Cardiff construction site manager has been fined after failing to comply with two safety orders issued to protect workers from injury.
Mr Haider Zaman, 53, trading as Pride Builders, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for ignoring two Improvement Notices served while he was refurbishing two residential properties in the Cathays area of Cardiff.
During an unannounced inspection of the two sites on 1 March 2011, HSE inspectors found sub-standard safety measures in relation to working at height, asbestos safety and structural stability and issued three Prohibition Notices ordering Mr Zaman to cease work immediately.
Two Improvement Notices relating to asbestos safety training and health and safety competence training were subsequently served to Mr Zaman.
Cardiff Magistrates’ Court heard the Improvement Notices served on Mr Zaman gave him until 10 May 2011 to make the necessary improvements. However, on returning to the site a week later HSE inspectors found the notices had not been complied with, and identified further sub-standard control measures for working at height.
Mr Haider Zaman, trading as Pride Builders, of 174 Mackintosh Place, Cardiff pleaded guilty to two breaches of Section 33 (1)(g) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. He was fined a total of £1,280 and ordered to pay costs of £1,500 as well as a victim surcharge of £15.
A foundry in Stoke has been fined £8,000 plus £4,798 in costs after a worker fell into an unfenced pit housing a mould containing molten metal at 900°C. The 28 year old worker suffered severe burns to his left arm and upper legs. The man who wishes not to be named, needed skin grafts on his injured limbs which are still scarred, following the incident on the 5th May 2010.
During the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution, Fenton Magistrates’ Court heard the worker is still undergoing physiotherapy for restricted movement in his arm, hand and fingers, and is so traumatised by the experience he has not been able to return to any work at the foundry.
Barry Holt, IIRSM Director of Policy and Research, notes that with membership of the EU, we have seen the introduction of a range of specific sets of regulations which has been seen as a return to the pre-health and safety at work act days.
This has, in turn, led to calls for another simplification and the review of legislation being carried out by Professor Löfstedt’s committee.
Unfortunately, some of these calls have taken the view that UK standards are inevitably higher than elsewhere and that the review should focus on repealing those sets of regulations that originated in the EU. If this approach were to be adopted, we would risk losing some good legislation that effectively filled previous gaps. It is important that we don’t let the review be hi-jacked by a xenophobic outlook.
IIRSM is concerned that the review should reinforce the need for a risk-based approach which emphasises protecting life as the key objective rather than moving back towards a compliance-based approach. The requirement of risk assessment is inherent in all recent legislation although this has led to an ‘industry’ where assessments for each activity are seen as ends in themselves.
Using the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations as the focus gives an opportunity for simplification.
On the 30th April 2010, the worker on a construction site refurbishing buildings climbed a step ladder to remove a cable. The worker assumed that the cable was dead and so attempted to remove the cable using a hammer and chisel. After the second blow, the worker has no recollection other than waking on the floor with a colleague trying to extinguish flames from the top half of his body. The worker received serious 30 – 35% burns to his body which required skin grafts.
The accident victim was a sub contractor of Pineview Interiors Ltd of Havering, London.
At the time of the incident, a 415v 3-phase temporary electrical supply had been provided to the site, and on that morning the worker explained to his supervisor that the electrical cable needed to be removed to allow plasterboard to be installed. HSE investigation revealed that Pineview undertook what HSE deemed to be ‘very limited’ enquiries as to whether this cable was in fact still live, and its workers proceeded on the false assumption that the cable being described must have been an old redundant cables from the pre-existing installation.
An “entirely foreseeable accident” led to the death of a demolition worker, the Health and Safety Executive has said.
Bernard McCarroll, 68, from Croy, North Lanarkshire, had been dismantling a hydraulic excavator at Whiteinch Demolition yard in Glasgow in May 2008 when a weight from machinery fell on him.
Health and Safety officers found that the firm had not properly risk-assessed the operation.
Whiteinch Demolition Ltd, of Centurion Works, Balmuildy Road, Bishopbriggs, was fined £15,000 over the incident after admitting health and safety breaches.
The court heard that a safe system of work had not been provided to those carrying out the dismantling. Insufficient information was also made available over the assembly of the excavator by the company.
Source: IOSH
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