Safety Matters - july 2005

Welcome to the July 2005 edition of the Mesh Consultants Safety Matters email newsletter.

This newsletter is available on free subscription only and is our way of keeping you informed about developments in Health and Safety. To review or amend your subscription details, please see the notes at the end.

In this issue:

Fire safety legislation reformed by Parliament

TUC call to make directors liable for workplace accidents

HSE concern about back injuries survey

Sun cream and protective clothing for outdoors workers

Dull work leads to heart attacks

Tesco in £50,000 fine to bakery worker

Parliament has agreed the biggest single reform of fire safety legislation.

Under the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order, responsibility for fire safety will be on the employer or "reasonable person" for a building, and they will be required to assess the risks of fire and take steps to reduce or remove them. Businesses will also no longer need a fire certificate although the fire service can still inspect premises.

The reforms will apply to England and Wales and come into force in April 2006.

Individual directors must be made liable for accidents and injuries sustained at work if the UK's safety record is to be improved, according to the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber argues that there is an omission from the draft bill on corporate manslaughter, which does not legislate to make individual directors liable when their failures result in a death or injury in the workplace.

"Under the draft bill, only corporations will be able to be held to account," he said. "That leads to two problems. The first is that it is not corporations that kill people. A corporation is just a piece of paper. It is actually the decisions of those at the top of organisations, or their lack of actions, that lead to deaths."

"The other problem is that you can't put a corporation in prison. Either as part of this bill, or separately, the Government has to look at the issue of directors' duties. It is fundamental that criminal liability for management applies not only to the corporate body but also to its owners and directors."

Mr Barber told delegates at a TUC Centre for Corporate Accountability conference on corporate manslaughter that 250 workers are killed each year as a result of accidents at work, with 80 per cent of these deaths a direct result of management failures.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has expressed concerns over cavalier attitude towards back injuries in the workplace.

The HSE carried out a survey of employer and employee opinions on back-related injury. The survey also found that 60 per cent of employees confessed to continuing with an activity, despite being aware of the potential risks involved, because it was quicker and easier to complete the task in that manner.

The Head of the Better Working Environment at the HSE commented: "As the cause of one in six work-related sickness absences, it is worrying that such a high percentage of employees are ignoring the risks at work, particularly when the effect it can have on their wider quality of life is taken into consideration.

The HSE has launched a major campaign to target a reduction in the incidence of back-related injuries. It is estimated that around 4.9 million working days are lost every year at a cost of £5 billion in business and NHS costs.

The TUC has commented that: "Preventing back injuries should be a major concern for employers and workers given the scale of the problem and the consequences of not dealing with it. Back injuries are extremely debilitating to individual victims and their families, as well as very costly to employers and the economy. And yet the solutions that would prevent injury are often extremely simple."

Employers could be forced to issue outdoor workers with sun cream and protective clothing, under a proposed EU directive.

If passed, the legislation would oblige employers to assess the strength of UV rays each day and, if there is deemed to be a risk to workers, they must be provided with sun cream, sunglasses, a T-shirt or even a parasol.

Employers would also have to calculate the risk to individual workers from UV exposure, taking into account factors such as complexion and family history.

The new rules would have an impact on thousands of companies and many different roles including builders, farmers, park attendants, lifeguards, traffic wardens and policemen.

Philip Bushill-Maththew, the Tory MEP for the West Midlands, said: "This is plain daft. You can't legislate that all companies have to offer some clothing or sun cream for people who have to work outside."

Having a dull job could increase the risk of a heart attack, according to researchers from University College London.

The survey of 2,000 male civil servants found that monotonous, steady work is associated with a faster and less varied heart rate, which is linked to heart disease.

The British Heart Foundation said that the findings could also be linked to underlying depression, as it is already known that people in lower-paid jobs and with lower educational achievements have a higher risk of heart disease and depression.

Lots of men in the study with low-grade jobs also reported feeling depressed.

Dr Hemingway, leader of the study, said that changing workplace conditions could prevent heart disease.

Retail giant Tesco has been ordered to pay £50,000 to a bakery worker who lost the tip of his finger when he put his hand in machinery at the Norwich Harford Bridge store.

The employee was injured in February 2004 after he put his hand into a dough-dividing machine with no guard fitted.

Tesco was fined £25,000 in Norwich Magistrates' Court and told to pay the same in costs after admitting to health and safety failings at the site.

A representative for Tesco said that the failings were local.
South Norfolk District Council, which brought the prosecution, said that the costs figure was high because Tesco had initially denied any offence and the prosecution had to spend significant sums in preparation for the trial.

The court was told there was a "culture of carelessness at the store".