Lawford Kidd's Blog

A Scottish Firm located in Moray, Scotland has been fined £6,666 following one of its employees being burned in a flash fire.

The employee who was aged 49 at the time of the incident, was burned as he opened the door to a shed where a pressure washer was kept. Upon opening the door, the smoke inside ignited which quickly burned the employee. He had approached said shed after seeing smoke escaping.

Figures published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2014 showed that Britain is one of the safest places to work in the EU, however with 133 deaths and over 78,000 people injured in the last year alone, just how good are the health and safety standards in the UK?

Recent statistics show that as well as numerous employees sustaining injuries in the workplace, over 1.1 million employees suffer from a work-related illness, costing society, on average, £14.2 billion a year to treat.

Illnesses in the workplace cost employers 60% more than injuries throughout the working year. The report also showed that 28.2 million working days were lost due to work-related illness and workplace injury in 2013/14.

Labour Party MSP Richard Baker (North East Scotland region) has called for changes to the existing laws governing corporate homicide, saying they are "not able to cope with modern times and, in particular, modern business and other relationships". In Scotland, there are on average 20 workplace fatalities per year, and in 2012/13 22 people died.

The MSP is now consulting on a proposed Culpable Homicide (Scotland) Bill to this effect, although it is unlikely it will materialise before to 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections.

New health and safety regulations regarding explosives are set to come into force next month – October 2014.

The Explosives Regulations 2014 (ER 2014) and the Acetylene Safety (England and Wales and Scotland) Regulations 2014 (ASR 2014) come as a result of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) reviewing the existing health and safety explosive legislation.

The HSE review found that the existing law needed clarification and modernisation - the complicated legal duties owed to various different bodies, and the differing definitions at UK and International law, together produced a very complex picture.  The HSE therefore concluded that a broader, more coherent framework would be far more effective.  

The owner of a Derbyshire firm that specialises in refurbishing precision machining tools has been fined for safety breaches after a worker severed a thumb while lifting a heavy component.

Mark Evans, who was 45, was working on rebuilding a rotary table device when the incident happened.  As he worked on the tool, which is used for drilling or cutting work at exact intervals around a fixed axis, and weighs around 30kg, it came loose from a sling attaching it to the prongs of a forklift truck that was being used to lift it.

As the sling slipped through the eyebolts in the rotary table, Mr Evans’ right thumb was somehow trapped by the sling and eyebolt, severing it completely and causing further tendon damage to the hand.