A manufacturing company has been fined after a worker became entangled in a machine and has been left paralysed from the chest down.  The man, from Worcester, had been working for Mountfield CNC Ltd at the firm’s site at Berry Hill Industrial Estate in Droitwich when the incident took place on 4 January 2022.

The partner of a man who got stuck and crushed under a vehicle at a motor repair company and later died has spoken of her struggles coping with her loss.  Kenneth (Kenny) McCord, 56, died following an incident on 16 July 2020 at JJ Tyres & Recovery based in Bootle, Merseyside.

Network Rail has been fined £1.2million following the death of a grandad who was crushed while carrying out maintenance work.  Long-serving employee Kevin Mauger was crushed by a railway track weighing six tons while working at a rail depot in Hampshire.

MD Safety comment:  With the new Building and Fire Legislation, expect to see more enforcement for failures in fire risk control in the coming year.

Mulberry Real Estate Ltd, and its director, David Bryant, who are landlords of properties in Cardiff, have been fined for a string of health and safety offences.   These include failing to carry out necessary repairs to fire doors, escape windows and kitchens and for failure to re-licence two properties.

MD Safety comment: The stats suggest a similarity with pre-pandemic levels - however that only shows that there has been no positive progress since that time.  The industry needs to improve across all areas of Occupational Safety and Health.

One hundred and thirty-five workers were killed in work-related incidents in the UK in the last year with the highest amount in construction (45), according to figures published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).  

The Health and Safety Executive has urged motor repair workshops to ensure their processes and practices are fit for purpose as its data shows that 21 workers in the sector have been killed in incidents since 2017.  In the same period almost 4,500 reportable work-related non-fatal injuries have also been recorded by the HSE at businesses involved in the sale and repair of motor vehicles.

A construction company has been fined £12,000 after a Shropshire bricklayer fell through a stairwell opening and fractured his skull.  Scott Ife, 30, from Bridgnorth, was working for 2 Counties Construction (Midlands) Ltd when the incident took place on 8 June 2020. The company had been hired as the principal contractor overseeing the refurbishment of agricultural barns into houses on Humber Lane in Telford.

A private boarding school has been fined £50,000 after exposing two employees, five pupils, and two other children to high levels of radioactive radon gas.  Five pupils at Kingswood School in Bath, Somerset were exposed to levels of radioactive radon gas almost 8 times the legal limit. Two other children, who were not pupils at the school, were exposed to levels of radon gas almost 14 times the legal limit. Two employees were exposed to radioactive radon gas ¾ of the legal limit. Exposures to radiation need to be kept as low as reasonably practicable.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has extended the deadlines of the UK REACH transitional registration by three years.

A three-year amendment passes through Parliament and applies to all UK and ‘Grandfathered’ REACH registrations.  

An oil company has been fined £650,000 for health and safety failings which led to the tragic death of a contractor.  BP Exploration Operating Company Limited was found guilty of a health and safety breach at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on 14 July 2023.