September 2014 Health and Safety Legal Update:
In August 2014 two men were sent to prison for Asbestos offences and an NHS Trust was heavily fined for Asbestos H&S breaches.
Two brothers from Stoke on Trent have been sentenced to custodial sentences as a result of breaching Asbestos Regulations while they were carrying out building work in a former paint works in Burslem.
Akram Hussein and Inam Hussain were sentenced to 22 week and 14 weeks respectively, they were also ordered to pay £43,000 costs.
The Health and Safety Executive the UK’s main enforcement body had already taken out a number of enforcement actions involving this refurbishment but the pair had chosen to ignore these and went on to remove Asbestos themselves from the buildings, even though they had been told it was illegal to do so without appropriate training.
A large NHS Trust (West Hertfordshire NHS Trust) has been fined £55,000 and ordered to pay £34,000 costs for "potentially" exposing people to Asbestos over an 11 year period.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-28867004
These two cases demonstrate the seriousness that the HSE now give to Asbestos related conditions and Asbestos Exposure, in fact in the Hospital case no exposures had been proven but it could be proven that Asbestos was not being managed properly, within the Trust. This is the first time that we have heard of someone going to prison for such an offence.
The HSE are beginning to use extreme action against companies or organisations who don’t control Health issues in the workplace to a similar level to safety issues. Historically the Health issues have been a poor cousin compared to safety issues, but work related health issues particularly Asbestos Exposures, have the potential of seriously harming large numbers of people in the area, if the circumstances are right.
One large single exposure to Asbestos Fibres has the potential to kill, even though this may be decades later.
Asbestos related conditions are known to kill over 4000 people a year in the UK, over double the number killed in road traffic fatalities (currently around 1700 per year). Most who die from exposure to Asbestos have been, exposed at work.
Wallett HSE Services Limited can help organisations to put in appropriate management systems in place to control the risks associated with Asbestos in the workplace.
Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 Update:
The CDM Regulations have been in force since since 1994. They had a major overhaul in 2007 in which the role of planning supervisor was changed to CDM- Coordinator.
Greater focus on protection to the environment and also improved on site welfare facilities were a requirement.
Any "Non-Domestic" construction related project, which exceeds 30 days or 500 person days must be notified to the Health and Safety Executive on the F10 notification.
But still the construction industries fatality rates run at around 5 times that of the national average.
The HSE launched a consultation on the CDM Regulations, which closed in April 2014 which again proposes another major overhaul, including one very controversial change that not only "Non-Domestic Premises" but also "Domestic Premises" which exceed the time or man hours rules will now need to notified.
The role of CDM-Coordinator is likely to abolished and replace with another role of Principal Designer, if the proposals are followed.
These changes have been so controversial that the government have apparently put pressure on the Health and Safety Executive not to bring the new regulations into force until after the election in 2015 (the new CDM Regulations originally supposed to be coming into force 2014).
So for the time being the status-quo remains the same. CDM-Coordinators and domestic clients can breath a temporary sigh of relief!
You don't need to do anything different, for the time being, until the new CDM regulations eventually do come into force.