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Posts Tagged ‘health and safety’
Silverdell PLC, the Specialist Environmental Support Services group, today welcomed the Health and Safety Executive’s changes to the Control of Asbestos Regulations, saying this could affect up to 730,000 workers in the UK.
Changes to the Control of Asbestos Regulations come into force today (6 April 2012) following amendments to bring the UK legislation in to line with the minimum standards of the EU Asbestos Worker Protection Directive.
The biggest change affects the current “Non-Licensable” work on asbestos. This category represents the vast majority of all work carried out on asbestos within the UK, affecting some 1.8m workers annually. The “Licensed” category of work on asbestos – affecting some 9,000 workers – is not intended to be affected.
The “Non-Licensable” category will be split into two and an additional category will be created which will be termed “Notifiable Non-Licensable Work” (NNLW). This will sit between the current “Non-Licensable” and “Licensable” categories. Works that fall into this category must be: notified, each worker exposed must have medical surveillance every three years and the employer must maintain a register for each worker of the type and duration of work done with asbestos – to be kept for 40 years along with copies of all medicals.
A construction company based in Edgware has been fined for carrying out unsafe demolition and construction work at a house in Surrey.
Laxmi Developments Ltd and its director, Vijay Madhaparia, were prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), for failing to comply with a Prohibition Notice (PN). They had failed to provide adequate safety protection for employees and failed to carry out an asbestos survey on a property before demolition.
Redhills Magistrates’ Court heard that during a visit to a building site at Mellow Close, Banstead, on 23 June 2011, an inspector from the HSE was confronted with such poor standards; he consequently served a PN and three Improvement Notices on the firm.
The inspector issued a PN as workers were found knocking down the house at first floor level with no edge protection to prevent falls. They were aware of the requirements for scaffolding and edge protection, however, Madhaparia had instructed workers to go ahead with the demolition without these measures in place.
The firm was served with three Improvement Notices; these were served to ensure sufficient demolition planning was carried out, to improve welfare facilities on the site and also to ensure the site supervisor was competent to carry out the works.
On the 6th of September 2011, photographs were sent to the HSE showing the PN being contravened and the same poor practices continuing on site. The HSE then telephoned Madhaparia to discuss the previous PN and to remind him of the dangers of working at height.
A partner in a Kent based development company, Allan Smith, has been prosecuted for ‘cutting corners’.
Allan Smith has been prosecuted after dangerous conditions were found on a demolition project in Dover; he had failed to carry out an asbestos assessment and did not secure the site.
Children were not prevented from accessing the site where asbestos may have been present.
The Canterbury Magistrates heard that in April of 2010 a former public house was purchased for development. Mr. Smith from ATS Developments was the principal contractor to demolish the building.
The Health and Safety Executive received a complaint when an inspector visited in October 2010. According to the inspector there were children playing on the site whilst the building was partially demolished and the site unfenced.
A public footpath also ran across the land.
HSE investigations found that there had been no asbestos survey undertaken prior to demolition and this remained the case even after the HSE sent a letter to the partners stating that, a survey needed to be carried out.
A widow, whose husband died from asbestos poisoning, has finally ‘claimed justice’, when her three year fight for compensation ended with her receiving a £200,000 pay-out.
Pamela Holliday has revealed her joy of winning the fight for her husband Ralph’s justice, after the company for which he worked initially refused to accept responsibility.
Whilst working at Tretol Limited factory, in Buckingham Avenue, Slough – between 1951 and 1954 Mr. Holliday was required to handle asbestos delivered to the factory in hessian sacks. After his death in June 2008 his wife took legal action against Tretol Group due to them initially claiming he never worked there.
In order to support her case, Mrs. Holliday tracked down a phone directory from the 1950’s in the Slough Library, proving her husband did work for the company.
She said: “I’m so pleased for my husband – that’s what he wanted me to do. It took his life – time that we should have been spending together. “That is why I kept on for so long – I wanted to get justice for him. I know he would be proud of me.”
A RETIRED telecommunications engineer has been awarded a payout after contracting a deadly asbestos-related disease during a long working career in Torbay.
Grandfather Frederick Vincent, 76, from Torquay, has been given a five-figure sum by a judge sitting at the High Court in Bristol.
A judgement was made against Mr Vincent’s former employers, British Telecommunications Plc, for its part in allegedly negligently exposing its employee to asbestos dust.
Mr Vincent worked for the company for 30 years and was regularly exposed to the lethal fibres.
He was diagnosed with mesothelioma on his 50th wedding anniversary to wife Jean earlier this year.
He says he will use the money, an interim payment pending a final settlement, to improve his healthcare for the time he has left and make provisions for his family.
Mr Vincent started as a telegram boy for the Post Office in Torquay when he was 15 and then for BT as an installation engineer between 1962 to 1989 where he regularly came into contact with asbestos.
The Welsh Government has launched an independent review into the management of asbestos at Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth.
The hospital failed to implement effective controls to manage asbestos after a survey in 2004 found the substance in stairwells and lift shafts. The unsafe practices, which required maintenance workers to operate in these areas, continued until 2009, when they were quickly identified by the hospital’s new Health Board and reported to the HSE.
However, the HSE was powerless to pursue a prosecution over the asbestos breaches because of a legislative error, which failed to ensure that issues of previous corporate criminal responsibility were transferred to the Hywel Dda Local Health Board when it was created – along with six others – in 2009, as part of NHS reforms in Wales.
The chief executive of NHS Wales, David Sissling, has now commissioned an independent review into the management of asbestos at the hospital, so that lessons can be learned for the wider organisation. The review will be undertaken alongside the ongoing investigation by the HSE and the internal inquiry by the Health Board.
STAFF at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool could have been exposed to the deadly building material asbestos.
The Daily Post can today reveal the substance was found in service ducts beneath the hospital during a routine safety check.
The ducts have now been sealed off. Health chiefs said tests confirmed wards and offices had not been affected.
They added the risk to people who have worked in the ducts – those employed in the hospital’s estates team – was low.
The 13 staff in question have been briefed on the situation, a spokeswoman for the hospital said.
A statement from Judith Adams, chief operating officer at Alder Hey, read: “The safety of everyone at Alder Hey is paramount whether a patient, visitor, an employee or contractor.
“We have been advised that the health risks to our staff from any potential exposure are minimal but we have put in place arrangements to further protect the health and safety of everyone at Alder Hey.”
Lincoln University has been fined for putting staff, students and contractors at risk of exposure to asbestos.
The failings came to light on 24 February 2010 when a lecturer became trapped in a room after a door lock broke. She enlisted the help of a colleague to release her and once freed, they noticed debris around the door handle.
They notified the university’s health and safety department which examined the door and others in the area, and discovered most were lined with asbestos insulating board (AIB), and that some were damaged.
The university notified the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which carried out its own investigation. It was found that a number of areas across the university’s estate had been subject to asbestos surveys over a number of years and many areas were found to contain asbestos-containing materials or even asbestos debris, yet no remedial action had been taken.
Lincoln University Higher Education Corporation, of Brayford Pool, Lincoln, pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching Regulation 5(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court today. The university was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £12,759 costs.
A woman who died from fatal asbestos-caused lung disease mesothelioma was exposed to the deadly material at Grimsby College where she worked as a cleaner, an inquest heard.
Brenda Waddell, 61, of Westhill Road, Grimsby, died on September 9 this year after being diagnosed with the cancer in February.
It is thought Mrs Waddell, who leaves behind her husband, Roy, a retired electrical mechanic, developed the disease after being exposed to asbestos at the then Grimsby College, where she worked as a cleaner from 1984 to 2007. Asbestos was known to cause mesothelioma by 1960.
At the time she was employed by Grimsby Council and was contracted out to the college.
Before her death, Mrs Waddell prepared a statement which detailed where she believes she was exposed to the material.
It read: “In 1984, I joined Grimsby College as a cleaner. I was employed by Grimsby Council and was contracted out. I believe it was during this period of employment at the college that I was exposed.
“I have been informed that in the early years there was a removal programme from the boiler house.
“I was not able to walk down the nearby corridor but I believe me and the other cleaners would have still been exposed to it.
“I have also been informed that Mr Ken Lord, from Laceby Road, died from mesothelioma after working there as a contractor.
“He was also aware of the process of removal of asbestos at the college, which was mainly the ground floor, for which I was responsible for cleaning the classrooms, toilets and corridors.
A council contractor ignored the rules when deadly asbestos was buried on a city nature reserve.
Instead of disposing of the asbestos correctly, the Enterprise employee shoved it into the ground at Alney Island.
He has since been relieved of his position and the fibrous material was dug up.
Barry Leach, from Gloucester City Centre Community Partnership, said: “I am disappointed an employee feels cutting corners is the way to do things. I hope measures are put in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Enterprise workers were called to the site in July after 20 travellers left tonnes of rubbish.
Among the waste was roof tiles from what is believed to be a garden shed. These contained asbestos.
Strict regulations surround the disposal of the substance, which is responsible for 4,000 deaths a year.
But although asbestos particles pose a serious risk to humans if inhaled, they do not pose a problem when in the ground.
A widow has claimed her late policeman husband died from an asbestos-related cancer – which he may have contracted at a Birmingham police station.
Frances Dodd, 73, is now determined to discover how her partner Frank, 73, caught the killer disease which is far more common in industrial workers.
Her late husband joined West Midlands Police in 1956 before retiring in 1990.
Frank first began to suffer symptoms of mesothelioma – a form of lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure – in March 2009. He was diagnosed in July 2009 – before dying less than two months later.
Last year the Deputy Coroner for Birmingham, Sarah Elaine Ormond-Walshe, recorded a verdict that Mr Dodd had died as a result of an industrial illness.
Widow Frances, from Kings Heath, Birmingham, said: “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Frank was a policeman, not a factory worker so I don’t understand how he could have got the disease.
A BUILDING contractor has been ordered to pay more than £14,000 in fines and costs after its workers were exposed to potentially deadly asbestos fibres during refurbishment work in Swansea.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Swansea-based J C Irvine Limited after an investigation found work on the refurbishment of the former Ace Electrics building in The Strand, Swansea, was being carried out without an asbestos survey having been done.
Swansea Magistrates heard that, between April 27 and May 12 last year, asbestos containing materials were disturbed by construction workers employed by the company, releasing asbestos fibres into the air.
The HSE was informed employees were carrying out work in a contaminated building. Inspectors who visited the site served an immediate Prohibition Notice.
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