The International Stress Management Association (ISMA) will hold this year’s National Stress Awareness Day on 4 November 2009, with the aim of promoting awareness and knowledge in the prevention and reduction of human stress.

This year’s campaign will focus on “Stressing the Positives” and ISMA is currently putting together the programme for the 2009 campaign. A range of resources are available to download, including posters and leaflets on stress awareness at http://www.isma.org.uk/national-stress-awareness-day/index.html. ISMA also offers links to help find stress advisors, and visitors to the website are invited to play a free stress relief game.

The HSE has announced it will be supporting National Stress Awareness Day 2009 and urged employers to be aware that one of the positive actions available to tackle work-related stress is by using the framework of the HSE Management Standards.

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The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) have warned that literacy problems in the workforce could have deadly consequences in the health and safety context. Recent figures released indicate that over a million people aged over 16 in England do not have the reading age expected of seven-year-olds. This could obviously have major implications for employees’ safety.

Following International Literacy Day, which took place on 8 September 2009, IOSH urged businesses not to assume that written down health and safety instructions will be understood by all. IOSH says the key is to always make sure employees understand before letting them get on with work, and to encourage workers to not be embarrassed to ask questions if they do not understand something.

IOSH are concerned that being able to read is something many of us take for granted. But there are many people in the workplace with low levels of literacy, which means employers must not just rely on written information or even verbal instructions. A low level of literacy however does not mean they cannot understand; it’s just that employers need to make sure that they consider how they need to get their health and safety message across to the workforce. This includes considering the huge increase of foreign workers into the U.K. many who may struggle with the English language.

Is employee understanding of your health and safety rules and systems a problem to your company? Why not take a look at some of the many companies that MESH has assisted to both simplify health and safety, and deliver training. We can help to improve your employees understanding and help protect your business.

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The HSE is urging companies to implement and maintain safe systems of work and to offer full training to staff to ensure that the health and safety of employees is not put at risk. This follows the sentencing of Delico Ltd at Aylesbury Crown Court. The company was prosecuted after a cleaner was fatally injured while cleaning a blending machine at its meat processing plant in Milton Keynes.

Delico Ltd based at Sutton Fields in Hull, was fined £160,000 and ordered to pay costs of £40,452. The company had pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 at a hearing in Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court on 10 July 2009.

The HSE investigated the incident at Delico’s meat processing plant in Snelshall West, Milton Keynes and found that the employee had been cleaning one of the blending machines when a powered door on the machine closed unexpectedly and she suffered severe head injuries. She died at the scene.

Commenting the HSE Inspector said “Employers must ensure that they implement safe systems of work for staff using machinery. They must make certain that safety features on machines, such as guards are not overridden. All areas of risk need to be assessed, including cleaning and maintenance tasks, to make sure that tragic incidents like this do not happen.”

Has your company considered all of its operations when undertaking risk assessments? At MESH we have extensive experience of helping companies to ensure their risk assessments are suitable and sufficient in the eyes of the regulators, which helps to protect the employees and the business.

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Companies must ensure that any equipment they use is fit for purpose and that safe and effective working systems are put into place to protect employees. That is the message from the HSE following the prosecution of an Essex-based water technology company after a contractor was injured.

The man was contracted by Eimco Water Technologies Ltd, which supplies water intake systems for power stations, to work at Marchwood Power Station in Hampshire. Seawater is taken in, re-circulated to cool the power station and then pumped back out to sea.

He was assembling two components of a stop-log, which is a steel lock gate used to isolate or control the flow of water. The two components that he was working on each weighed approximately 2000kg. They were positioned approximately 0.6m above the ground on axle stands, normally used for motor vehicles. One of the stop-logs became unsupported and fell on him, whilst he was working underneath. He suffered fractures to his pelvis.

The HSE investigation found that Eimco Water Technologies Ltd had failed to take steps to protect the contractor by ensuring a safe and effective working environment. The risks had not been assessed and the company had failed to follow its own assembly instructions. In addition, the firm was not using equipment that was suitable for the job in hand.

Eimco Water Technologies Ltd was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay costs of £3,661.40 after pleading guilty to breaching s.3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974, which covers the duty of the employer to ensure that affected non-employees are not exposed to risks to their health or safety.

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The HSE is warning that care needs to be taken when using ride-on mowing machines following a court prosecution of Cheltenham Borough Council. This follows an incident when a council employee fell from a ride-on mower onto a park bench, breaking two ribs and suffering a compressed lung. He was forced to stay off work for 11 weeks.

The courts found the council guilty and fined them a total of £14,000, plus £3,000 compensation to the injured person and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £18,530.31 after Cheltenham BC pleaded guilty to charges under Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety At Work etc Act 1974 and Regulation 3(1) (a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

The magistrates heard that the council failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment for cutting the grass with the ride-on mower. The slope that the employee was working on was too steep for the machine he was using according to manufacturer’s guidelines. The employee had also not received enough information or instruction and there had been previous incidents that should have made the council take action to improve safety while using ride-on mowers.

Clearly a suitable risk assessment should have taken all site conditions into account, including steepness of slopes, before deciding which equipment was appropriate to use and should have looked at whether staff had received appropriate training and adequate instructions to ensure that operators could work safely.

Between 2001 and 2008, HSE received reports of 3 fatal incidents and a further 33 people were seriously injured when mowing machines overturned (figures from HSE stats re ‘Accidents caused by grass cutters reported under RIDDOR 2001-2008’).

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The HSE issued the warning to employers following a fatal incident where a dock worker was struck by a reversing vehicle. Associated British Ports of Holborn, London, the largest port operator in the UK was fined £266,000 and ordered to pay costs of just under £75,000, at Ipswich Magistrate’s Court after pleading guilty to breaching section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

The HSE is warning companies that they must make sure the interaction between vehicles and pedestrians are properly assessed and adequate measures put in place to reduce the risk.  This includes the need to have clear rules, properly-trained banksmen and drivers who understand the method of work being used.

The incident occurred when the 60 year old worker was standing on the bridge between the ferry and the quayside (also called the ‘linkspan’), coordinating vehicles on and off the ferry when he was struck by a reversing trailer.  He died at the scene.

The company was prosecuted for failing to ensure that persons in their employment were not exposed to risk and failed to ensure the provision and implementation of a safe system of work for the ro-ro operation.

The HSE inspection found that this was another example of a fatal incident that could and should have been prevented.  The company had identified the risks to the ramp man, yet failed to prevent him being in a position of danger behind a reversing vehicle.

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The HSE is warning employers that they must have systems in place for ensuring pedestrians and vehicles can move safely around the workplace after a man was knocked over by a forklift truck.

The advice comes after Fairline Boats Ltd, of Barnwell Road, Oundle, Northamptonshire, was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay £4,000 costs at Northampton Magistrates’ Court today after pleading guilty to breaching Regulation 17 (1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 in failing to organise their Nene Valley site such that pedestrians and vehicles could move around premises safely.

On the day of the accident the employee was returning from his afternoon tea break, from the car park on site when he was knocked down by a forklift truck. The driver, unaware of the collision continued driving the truck for approximately 26 metres with the employee stuck under the front until someone caught his attention. The employee had fractures to his pelvis and legs.

This incident could have been avoided if the company had organised the workplace so that vehicles could operate safely in a set area. All companies must assess the risks when pedestrians and vehicles, such as forklift trucks work in close proximity and take appropriate precautions which are well documented in HSE guidance.

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The warning comes after a company was fined for an incident in which a worker lost part of three fingers as he was attempting to clean a probe on a bagging machine at a plastics factory in Crumlin.

A dangerous moving part of the machine was left unguarded and there were no systems put in place by the company at the time of the accident for cleaning and maintenance of the machine.

A. Schulman Inc. Ltd, pleaded guilty to three health and safety charges at a hearing before magistrates and were fined a total of £18,000 and ordered to pay costs of £3,827.80.

The HSE investigation showed that employees of the company were not aware of the dangers of putting their hands inside this machine, and there was no guarding to stop them from accessing dangerous areas. There was also no clear procedure for cleaning and maintaining the machinery which meant that when operators attempted to clean the probe, they were running the risk of serious injury.

Have you checked that your machinery is properly guarded and that staff could not be hurt on machinery in your workplace? At MESH we have extensive experience of helping companies to ensure their work equipment is safe and complies with the PUWER regulations.

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Bodycote HIP Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching s2 (1) of the HSWA 1974 and was fined £533,000 and ordered to pay costs of £200,000. The company had previously experienced a similar double fatality at its Californian facility in 2001.

The two workers died of asphyxiation after being found on stairs leading to a concrete lined pit after argon gas had leaked from a large pressure vessel. It was found that the pits oxygen alarm had been silenced after a number of false alarms at the site and that the ventilation system was not working (and had not been for a month following a loss of power during a power cut).

Overnight the gas had leaked from the pressure vessel into the pit and when the men entered they lost consciousness from breathing the fumes.

Despite the previous incident in California the company had failed to undertake a proper risk assessment covering entry into a confined space. Although they did have a safe system of work and permit to work procedures they had not trained the employees properly nor had they audited that the procedures were being followed.

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