HSE

L149 - Draft Guidance on Mines Regulations 2014

This draft ACoP has been made available in advance of the Mines Regulations 2014 coming into force on 6 April 2015. It provides overarching advice and direction on how to meet the requirements of the new Regulations, although it may be subject to change before the Regulations come into effect.
 

L153 – Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015: Draft guidance

This draft guidance on the legal requirements in the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 has been published before the Regulations come into force on 6 April, to help anyone who has duties under the Regulations to prepare in advance. The final version of the Legal series guidance to support Regulations will be available on 6 April 2015.
 

COMAH: Electrical, Control and Instrumentation Delivery Guide

This new Electrical, Control & Instrumentation (E,C&I) Inspection Delivery Guide provides a concise guide detailing how the HSE will assess compliance across its three major inspection topics – functional safety, explosive and toxic gas atmospheres and electrical power systems.

Research Report Series

The HSE published the following research reports in January 2015:

• RR1028 – Further Validation of the ACE (Airborne Concentration Estimate) Instantaneous Source Model

• RR1021 - The occupational hygiene implications of the use of diacetyl in the food flavouring and fragrance industries

• RR1041 - The influence of gypsum in animal slurry systems on the generation of hydrogen sulphide

HSNEI

Driving at Work Northern Ireland: An Employers’ Guide

Developed by the DOE and HSENI, this guide is intended to assist employers and employees in understanding their duties under health and safety at work law for driving at work.

ECHA

REACH 2018 Roadmap

The REACH 2018 Roadmap outlines the ECHA’s milestones planned in the run up towards the final REACH registration deadline for existing chemicals on 31 May 2018.

The deadline concerns companies that manufacture or import substances in low volumes, between 1-100 tonnes per year. The roadmap describes the different milestones and support services that ECHA plans to give to the registrants from now until the deadline.

Gateshead firm fined after roof blown off in high winds

A Gateshead firm, Pyeroy Limited, has been prosecuted for safety failings after the roof of a temporary extension at Lynemouth Power Station was blown off in high winds – putting workers and others delivering coal to the site at risk.

A 25-metre span of the roof, that was around six metres long and weighed two tonnes, was blown off its eight-metre high scaffolding end supports on 23 December 2012. It struck the roof of an adjacent biomass shed before landing 50 metres away beyond the other end of the shed on a roadway used by delivery wagons and occasional pedestrians. Fortunately the timing of the incident, just before Christmas, meant that the normally busy road was deserted.

The contractor responsible for the roof, Pyeroy Limited, was prosecuted at Bedlington Magistrates’ Court on 28 January 2015 after an investigation by the HSE identified issues with its design and build. The court heard that the roof structure was part of a temporary extension to a permanent shed at the power station, designed to increase capacity and provide weather protection during deliveries by tipper wagons.

In 2011 Pyeroy Ltd had been instructed by the owners of the power station to build a temporary extension to the biomass shed that was designed by an external scaffold design company. This was dismantled in August 2011 once it was no longer required. Then in May 2012, Pyeroy Ltd was asked to install another temporary extension, this time designed by the in-house design team at Pyeroy Ltd. Although similar to the first structure, it was to be shorter and lower.

It was constructed in June and July 2012 by Pyeroy’s own workforce with the help of a specialist roofing contractor. However, poor communication resulted in an incomplete design plan being used.

HSE established that although the structure was routinely inspected during the build and once it was brought into use from October 2012, it was inherently unsafe.

Magistrates were told that on 22 December it was noted that the weather was worse than normal, with the winds picking up. This meant some of the sheeting on the structure needed to be re-tied. The temporary roof was blown off its end supports early the following morning. It ended up straddling a safety barrier and a dry riser pipeline between the main delivery access road and the legs of an adjacent conveyor.

HSE inspectors concluded that Pyeroy Ltd had failed to ensure those involved in the construction of the extension had the necessary knowledge and experience to do the work. The company also failed to properly communicate with the build team and to check the construction was carried out as it should be.

Pyeroy Limited was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £1,045.50 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

• Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: “It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.”

Firm fined after worker suffers severe burns

A Highland manufacturing company has been fined for safety failings after a worker suffered severe burns to both arms as he tried to clear a blockage in an unguarded machine. The employee was working on a production line at SGL Carbon Fibers in Muir of Ord, when the incident happened on 13 February 2011.

On the 15 January 2015 Dingwall Sheriff Court that an employee was working on a production line to heat-treat carbon fibres where the material is pulled through a series of ovens operating at increasing temperatures. On the day of the incident he was heading for his break when he noticed that the carbon fibre material coming out of an oven had wrapped around a roller.

He and his deputy team leader went to the front of the oven, which was heated to 200C, and the injured party climbed through the barrier and began to move the material that had caught using his left hand. The deputy team leader, unaware that the employee still had his hand inside the machine, instructed another operator to open the nip roller, which narrowed the gap between two rollers trapping the employee’s left wrist. He reached in with his right hand to withdraw his left and burned that wrist too. He was wearing company-provided gloves and safety jumper but was not wearing the Kevlar arm sleeves provided by SGL.

The injured pary was taken to hospital with severe burns to the back of both his wrists and a first degree burn to the inside of his right forearm. The following week he underwent surgery to have skin grafts on his wrists and spent a week in hospital before returning to work with the company. An investigation by the HSE revealed that despite suitable guarding being installed on similar trapping points on other production lines, SGL had failed to identify the risk on the line he worked on.

The company also failed to identify the risk to employees of being in very close proximity to the machine during the recovery activity and there was a failure to ensure that the process was stopped or workers withdrawn from the area before continuing. Additionally, SGL failed to ensure that the need to access dangerous moving parts, namely the rollers, was prevented or controlled or that the movement of those dangerous parts stopped before workers entered into the danger zone.

SGL Carbon Fibers Ltd, was fined £10,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

• Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: “It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees. It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.”

Coleraine timber company fined £75,000 for corporate manslaughter

A. Diamond and Son (Timber) Ltd was sentenced on 28 January 2015 at Antrim Crown Court for criminal safety failings that led to the death of a 54-year old employee. The company pleaded guilty to a breach of corporate manslaughter and was fined £75,000 plus £15,832 costs at Antrim Crown Court. The judgement follows a joint PSNI and HSENI investigation into the fatal incident, which took place on 27 September 2012.  

The injured party was carrying out a repair to a large automated machine when the accident occurred. Power to the machine had not been disconnected and during the work the machine moved, crushing and fatally injuring the worker. The investigation found that the repair could have been carried out safely and easily whilst the machine was isolated from all sources of power. The investigation also revealed that the safety guards preventing access to dangerous parts of the machinery had been modified and were regularly bypassed for routine tasks. It was also found that the electrical safety key for the safety gates had been disabled, and operators did not know how to operate the machine in maintenance mode.

• The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 came into force on 6 April 2008. It clarifies the criminal liabilities of companies including large organisations where serious failures in the management of health and safety result in a fatality.

Manufacturing firm fined over worker’s death

A West Yorkshire company has been sentenced after a worker died when he was crushed beneath a one tonne silo of varnish that slid from the tines of a forklift truck and toppled onto him. The employee died from his injuries hours after the incident on 25 March 2011 at Gardiner Colours Ltd’s factory in Ripley Drive nearby.

The HSE prosecuted the company, which makes inks, varnishes and coatings, after an investigation highlighted several safety failings, crucially the failure by Gardiner’s to spot risks to its workforce.

On 7 January 2015 Leeds Crown Court was told that a customer of the company had returned part of an order as it couldn’t decant varnish from a silo and had asked for the liquid be re-sent in 10kg plastic containers.

Because of difficulties in changing the order, workers were tasked with decanting the varnish directly from the silo into the containers via a tap at the base of the silo, which had been raised on the tines of the forklift. As the employee worked on the decanting, the silo slid down the tines and fell directly onto him. He died in hospital later the same night.

HSE found a combination of the creeping heavy load, the downward tilt of the forks, and the valve being used frequently from below, had caused the silo to fall. It was also found that Gardiner Colours had failed to assess the risks to workers of the decanting operation. As a result, employees were operating without a system of work in place to help them do the job in safety. The court also heard it had been dangerous for the forklift to be used to balance heavy loads for extended periods, as this was a job it was not designed for.

HSE said the failures by Gardiner Colours Ltd to provide a safe working environment had exposed employees to serious risk and led to the death of the employee. There was evidence that this was not the only incident at Gardiner Colours that had involved a load falling from the tines of a forklift truck; this near-miss ought to have alerted the company to the risk of a silo falling.

The company, of Ripley Drive, Normanton, near Wakefield, was fined £66,000 and ordered to pay £50,000 in costs after admitting breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

• Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: “It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.”