A refrigeration company has been fined £27,000 after a worker sustained significant injuries when he fell from an incomplete gantry.  GEA Refrigeration UK Ltd was replacing a cooler unit located on a gantry 10m above the warehouse floor at an Iceland depot in Swindon on 1 February 2017.

Findings from a new survey suggest noisy offices are lowering productivity and impacting worker health.  A study of office workers shows noise in the workplace is contributing to missed deadlines and negatively affecting employee wellbeing.

Lifting and moving heavy objects on construction sites is harming the health of thousands of brickies and builders to such a degree every aspect of their lives is affected.  Experts at the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are warning construction workers are picking up injuries and conditions that can stop them working and leave them struggling to stand, walk, or sit down.

Brewdog has been slapped with an improvement notice from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following three safety breaches.  The beer giant, which operates out of Balmacassie Industrial Estate in Ellon, has until November to meet the watchdog’s requirements.

A manufacturer of paper and paperboard has been fined after an employee was injured when they were drawn into a large paper re-winding machine.  On 19 July 2021 an employee of Amberset Limited based in Ashford, Kent, sustained injuries of three broken bones in their shoulder, bruising of the elbow and wrist and superficial damage to their head. The man then underwent surgery following the incident, where metal plates and pins were fitted in his shoulder and arm.

Two partners in a construction firm have been fined for failing to adequately control the risk to its employees from exposure to vibration when using vibrating tools.  Employees of Roywood Contractors worked at various construction sites using vibrating tools without adequate control. As a result, an employee who had been working at the company for 12 years suffered significant ill-health from hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS).

An engineering company has been fined after one of its employees fell through a roof while installing bird deterrent spikes.  A man working for Craven and Nicholas (Engineering) Ltd on St John’s Road in Boston, stepped onto a fragile roof surface and fell six metres through it – suffering serious injuries to his head and left arm on 13 May 2020.

A manufacturing company has been fined £20,000 after a worker’s hand was partially severed when it was caught in machinery.  The employee of ADA Machining Services Ltd, Ashton-under-Lyne, was operating a Richards 16ft vertical boring machine when he stepped on to the rotating table to check the internal boring cut but slipped and fell on the table on 24 March 2021.

In statistics released on 6 July 2022, HSE acknowledged for the first time that there is evidence of higher rates of the asbestos cancer, mesothelioma, in teachers, noting ‘proportional mortality ratios are somewhat higher for teachers and administrative occupations than those for nurses, sales occupations and process operatives, and this may suggest the potential for asbestos exposure during work time was somewhat higher in these jobs…’. 

Recommendations from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry will form part of the new Fire Safety (England) 2022 regulations, however, two recommendations on personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPS) will not be ratified.   The decision came from the government’s initial 2021 consultation on the event. Speaking in the House of Lords earlier this year building safety manager, Lord Stephen Greenhalgh, said that mandating PEEPs in high-rise residential buildings showed “substantial difficulties…around practicality, proportionality, and safety”.