Lawford Kidd's Blog

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has launched a two year Europe-wide campaign to tackle stress at work.

The prevalence of work-related stress in Europe is startling, says EU-OSHA. Its latest pan-European opinion poll revealed that 51% of workers find work-related stress to be common in their workplace and four in ten workers think that stress is not handled well in their organisation.

However, EU-OSHA believes that together employers and workers can successfully manage and prevent work-related stress and psychosocial risks, and the Healthy Workplaces Campaign aims to help companies do just that.

It is a sad fact that life changing workplace injuries can affect a worker at any stage of their career, from young people leaving education and entering the workplace for the first time, to older workers, who should be starting to wind down and look forward to enjoying their retirement.

Vet student suffers serious injuries

In one tragic case recently reported by the Health and Safety Executive, a 20-year-old veterinary student suffered severe leg and pelvic injuries during her last day of work experience at a stud farm.

She was collecting hay for the horses’ troughs when she was struck by four falling straw bales, weighing more than 1.2 tonnes, which toppled from a nearby five and a half-metre high stack.

A number of Scottish employers have come under the spotlight recently after their health and safety failings led to workers suffering serious and in some cases life changing injuries simply as a result of trying to do their job.

Janitor loses toe in chainsaw incident

In one such incident, Fife Council was fined £20,000 after a janitor lost a toe while working with a chainsaw.

The 39-year-old had been sent to a primary school in Dunfermline to remove a tree that had blown down in the school grounds. He and a colleague had removed most of the branches and were eventually left with just the trunk and a single limb attached at above-shoulder height. He climbed onto the trunk and started cutting through the limb, but it sheared away and landed on his foot, trapping it against the trunk.

An English council has been fined £18,000 after a ten-year-old boy sustained severe head injuries while he was playing on a tyre swing in an park, reports the BBC.

Jamie Jackson was hit on the head when the swing’s suspension mechanism collapsed and landed on top of him. He received a fractured skull and his injuries were described as “potentially life threatening” by the Health and Safety Executive.

Blackpool Council had apparently been warned on four separate occasions that the swing was faulty and in need of repair. It pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety legislation and apologised for the incident.

Labour MSP Patricia Ferguson has launched a consultation exercise on a proposed members Bill to overhaul the Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) system in Scotland.

According to Ms Ferguson, the Inquiries into Deaths (Scotland) Bill aims to create a system for investigating sudden and accidental deaths which is fit for purpose: allowing for a thorough investigation and also for lessons to be learned from the death.

The case for change

FAIs are currently governed by the Fatal Accident and Sudden Deaths Inquiries Act 1976. They take place following deaths that have occurred in a number of prescribed situations, including where deaths occur after a workplace accident or while the deceased was in custody.