June 2013 Health and Safety Legal Update:
This months health and safety legal update looks at a number of serious but preventable workplace incidents, which have recently been taken to court.
Morally, any reasonable employer wants to send home their workers and any other person who could be affected by their work activities, in the same condition as they began the day, may be a little more tired but apart from that completely unharmed.
Unfortunately most Executives, Directors and Senior Managers have to balance their Health and Safety responsibilities, with the cash flow (or profitability) of their business. In order to get the balance right though, they should be aware of the hidden costs associated with workplace, incidents, injuries and ill health. You must also remember for higher risk activities enforcing officers are not interested in your company profit or loss, they are want to know whether you are controlling the risks to a reasonably practicable level (i.e. complying with the Health and Safety at Work Act!!)
Having worked with a number of companies over the last five years or so, who have had serious workplace incidents and the hidden costs associated with an incident, can often be crippling to the businesses finances, sometimes to the extent that the business can fail or come close to that point.
It is important to realise that costs and fines imposed by the court, are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the overall costs of workplace incidents. Fines for health and safety breaches, cannot be insured against, as they are considered in law to be criminal acts. It is also said that for every £1 for the costs that can be insured (e.g. by public/ employers liability insurance), there is between £8- £36 which is not insurable. So to settle a £1,000 personal injury claim, that can often lead to well over £10,000 in uninsured costs.
Examples of some uninsurable costs are:
- Legal fees including court costs and solicitors fees.
- Fines (individual and company).
- Sick pay.
- Occupational health assessments, prior to injured party returning to work.
- Loss of knowledge or skills.
- Recruitment costs.
- Overtime pay.
- Staff costs to assist the investigation by enforcement authorities.
- Policy excesses.
- Increased insurance premiums.
- Impact on company reputation, bad publicity and loss of business.
- Costs incurred attending court/ legal hearings.
- Loss of productivity.
- Insurance policy exclusions.
- Paying H&S experts to assist in investigations and implementation of further safeguards.
- And many more!!!!
A Multinational Recycling Company fined £300,00 with £72,000 costs for a fatality incident when a loading shovel struck worker.
A 25 year old worker was killed in an incident European Metal Recycling (EMR) Limited's Willesden site in North London. Maintenance work was being carried out and while this was being completed the worker Linas Mataitis, was cleaning the floor with a hand shovel. He and other workers were piling the dirt up and the loading shovel (A large CAT/ JCB type digger) and another mini-excavator were collecting it for disposal outside the building.
The loading shovel returned for a forth time when it struck a steel support of one of the conveyor belts. When the loading shovel driver reversed, he noticed that Mr Mataitis had been trapped between the vehicle and the damaged support. Mr Mataitis died at the seen, of crush injuries.
During the investigation it was found that the driver had not been properly trained to operate the loading shovel and risk assessments were not completed of the tasks which were being completed together.
Mr Mataitis had only worked for the company for two months, at the time of the incident.
This incident highlights the importance of appropriate pedestrian and vehicle segregation, how maintenance tasks can complicate tasks which are regularly carried out and increase the risk of injury, if not properly planned and also how inexperienced workers may not appreciate the degree of risk associated with the tasks that they are carrying out on a day to day basis. It also highlights how appropriate training for any plant, vehicles or equipment used in the workplace is essential (and usually mandatory for things like loading shovels, fork lift trucks and other workplace vehicles.) Had these issues been been properly addressed at EMR and appropriate safeguard implemented, the incident would not have happened.
Unsecured Load on a Pallet Turner Caused Serious Injury and Resulting in a £12,000 fine and £3,769 costs.
A 51 year old man who worked for Emballator UK Limited, may lose his lower right leg as a result of an incident involving a pallet turner.
David Wain had not been trained to use this older pallet turner and was trying to turn a 1.5 Tonne pallet containing tin plates. He loaded the machine with a fork lift truck, wedged it in with pallets, as the other more modern pallet turner was broken down. When the machine moved the pallet, the plates fell out of the machine and although Mr Wain tried to avoid the falling plates he was badly injured and had some toes severed.
Surgeons managed to re-attach two toes, he also needed plates and screws putting into his ankle and lower leg. Mr Wain has been house bound since the incident and can only walk with crutches. He has been recently told by the hospital that he still may have to have his foot and lower leg amputated.
Any workplace tasks with a significant health and safety risk, must be risk assessed, appropriate and proportionate training provided and a Safe System of Work developed. These procedures should be reviewed on a regular basis, when it becomes apparent that they are no longer adequate or every 12 months, which ever comes first. It can become apparent that the procedures are not adequate, after an incident, near miss (e.g. reactive monitoring) or during a health and safety inspection/ audit (e.g. pro-active monitoring.)
A Nuneaton Company Fined £75,000 with over £25,000 costs when a stack of pallets fell killing a worker.
Marcin Rogala, 29, who lived in Harold Street, Nuneaton, was working at Ralph Coleman International Ltd on the Bermuda Industrial Estate in Nuneaton when the incident happened.
Mr Rogala was removing pallets from a stack, which had just toppled over, due to stormy weather and another pile fell onto him, the pallets weighed 36 KG each, although he tried to jump clear Mr Rogala sustained multiple injuries leading to his death.
Clearly this incident could have been prevented had the stacks of pallets been lower. There is no right or wrong, the safe height at which to stack pallets will depend on a number of factors:
- Are they stored inside or outside?
- Do workers wear appropriate PPE (e.g. hard hats?)
- Is the ground they are on solid and level?
- Are the stacks level or leaning?
- Are the pallets of uniform size and in good condition?
- Are pedestrians excluded from certain high risk areas? (Falling object protective structures on Fork lift trucks do offer some protection.)
- What are the weather conditions?
- If a pile does fall over in poor weather conditions, would it be appropriate to wait until the weather has improved before clearing up the toppled pallets?
After the hearing, HSE inspector Roger Amery added: “Lots of firms form unsupported or free-standing stacks in their yards. I hope this death and the penalty imposed prompts them to check the condition and height of their stacks so that this [type of incident] doesn’t happen again.”
http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2013/rnn-wm-9813.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-11741218