Health and safety issues in flooded areas

Health and safety issues in flooded areas – Advice to safety representatives… The TUC has produced a briefing for safety representatives and union members, giving advice on what to do in those parts of the country that are flooded to ensure the health and safety of employees.

http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-13550-f0.cfm

Visit the address above to view the documents in full, in print format or in text-only format.

Advice from the Health Protection Agency:

http://www.hpa.org.uk/flooding/default.htm

Flood heath advice from NHS Direct:

http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=2284

Environment Agency advice on flooding:

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/flood/

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Workplace noise still a health threat

News in the recent Risks bulletin:

Workers, some exposed recently, are still developing noise-induced hearing loss, recent compensation cases show. The noise levels in the Leeds factory of Depuy International, where Alan Gosling was part of a team making knee and hip replacements, has permanently damaging his hearing. Now the 39-year-old has been awarded £6,500 in compensation for the condition and been transferred to another department at the firm. He worked as a fitter and polisher between 1996 and 2006 and worked on spindles to grind and finish surgical implant components. The spindles – and shot blast machines around 10 metres away – generated high levels of noise when in use. However, until 2001, ear protection was not mandatory. Trade union Unite’s Amicus section, working with Thompsons Solicitors, secured the payout for Mr Gosling. Sheffield shopfitter Peter Nelson, 65, has been awarded £12,000 compensation pay out after he contracted noise induced hearing loss caused by noise from power tools whilst working for Plumb Furniture Systems Limited. As a result of being exposed to noise from circular saws, routers, sledge hammers, brakers and drills Mr Nelson developed hearing loss which is irreversible and makes it difficult for him to follow conversations. He now has to wear a hearing aid. Mark Allen, from law firm Irwin Mitchell, who represented Mr Nelson, said he ‘was never warned or advised about the dangers of noise induced hearing loss or was provided with any protective equipment. This case highlights the importance of health and safety policies. Employers have a duty of care to their staff which includes ensuring full protective equipment is provided so workers’ exposure to risk is kept to a minimum.’

Thompsons Solicitors news release. Irwin Mitchell Solicitors news release. Yorkshire Evening Post.

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Bosses jailed over worker’s death

News in the recent Risks bulletin from Rory O’Neill’s Hazards Magazine:

Two businessmen have been jailed for the manslaughter of a worker who was crushed to death at a concrete plant. Technician Christopher Meachen, 28, was killed at the Concrete Company at Costessey, Norfolk, in November 2005. Owner Timothy Dighton, 45, and area manager Roy Burrows, 46, both pleaded guilty at Norwich Crown Court. Dighton was jailed for a year and Burrows was jailed for nine months. Concrete Company, which has a head office in Peterborough and has 13 sites employing 104 staff, also admitted a charge of manslaughter. The company was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay £89,000 in costs. Christopher Meachen died at the company’s Minimix plant after becoming caught in an unguarded slew conveyer, which carried aggregate and sand up to the hoppers where cement is manufactured. He had only worked at the plant for two months and was due to marry his fiancée, Helen Pamplin, the mother of his three children, in the summer of 2006. The court heard the company had paid ‘no regard to the safety, the livelihoods or the physical wellbeing of decent men’ and his death would not have happened if managers had invested just £2,000 in safety measures. It has since emerged that the firm slipped off the radar of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as director Timothy Dighton failed to inform the watchdog of the company’s existence. Judge Peter Jacobs said Dighton had ‘overall control’ of the plant where the emphasis was ‘on productivity and nothing else.’ He added: ‘He should have known it was totally unsafe and should have not allowed it to continue.’ Detective inspector Richard Graveling of Norfolk Police said: ‘These blatant breaches of health and safety, or indeed lack of any systems to address health and safety issues, can and do lead to fatal injuries, as we have seen in two cases in the last four years, and we will deal with them as major crimes. These convictions should send out a message to other employers in the area that they are fully responsible and accountable for the safety of their employees.’

Norwich Evening News BBC News Online

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Child, 2, injured in unsafe factory

News in the recent Risks bulletin from Rory O’Neill’s Hazards Magazine:

A two-year-old child was injured by a conveyor belt in a King’s Lynn factory. Bel-Shrimp Ltd was fined a total of £5,000 with £4,300 costs, and its director Eric Oughton was fined £400 with £100 costs at Kings Lynn Magistrates Court last week. The child – who cannot be named for legal reasons – suffered serious injuries to its fingers after putting a hand in the bottom roller of the conveyor at the factory in November 2002. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) brought the prosecution. HSE inspector Steve Gill said: ‘The HSE wishes to make it clear that we expect business risks to be properly managed and machinery to be guarded in accordance with published guidance. A working factory is no place for a child. The risks in this factory were even greater as there was machinery which was not guarded, to the extent it should have been.’ He added: ‘The message from this case is that HSE will continue to take action against those who flout the law and that managers and directors can be held directly responsible should their actions lead to employees or others being put at risk.’

• HSE news release Eastern Daily Press

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Great little HSE Stress video

There’s a great little stress video on the HSE site, an animation, of a boss who keeps pushing his man to tighten the nuts faster and push up production… Have a look HERE

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Geoffrey Podger responds to “zombie health inspectors” article in The Guardian

Dear Sir,

Not for the first time, in his article of 22 June, Simon Jenkins completely misrepresents the Health and Safety Executive’s standpoint on risk both as regards to theory and practice. HSE’s role is not to seek eliminate all risk but rather to help ensure that risks are identified and managed in a sensible and proportionate manner. Far from being ‘an unregulated, unaccountable realm of the State’ we are accountable to Ministers through the Health and Safety Commission and are subject to full Parliamentary scrutiny. Finally, to claim our inspectors are ‘zombies’ is simply abusive nonsense. I frequently accompany our inspectors in their work and am invariably struck by their expertise, their good sense and their moderation. Their dedication is to reducing the 212 deaths and 146,000 injuries in the workplace (2005/06) not to the figments of Mr Jenkins’ imagination.

Yours faithfully,
Geoffrey Podger
Chief Executive

In my role as an Amicus Safety Representative, having met a few inspectors, and through my many contacts with HSE personnel, at conferences and on committees in which I’ve participated, I’ve always found the people working for the HSE to be intelligent, personable, reasonable, and just as dedicated as Geoffrey Podger claims.  Mr. Podger isn’t just speaking up to protect his ‘troops’ — he’s telling it like it is.  The Guardian paper, for which I have a great deal of respect, can’t be held accountable for the rubbish that journalists will print, just for the sake of ‘coming up with something’. But Mr. Jenkins should be… He wants to open his eyes (though, if he hasn’t by now, it’s probably too late) and find a better target for his abuse.  There are plenty of them out there.  Get out of your ivory tower, mate, get the blinkers off and try to find your way back to doing the job that once inspired you.

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