Lawford Kidd's Blog

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has opened a three-month consultation on proposals to exempt self-employed people whose work activities pose no potential risk of harm to others from health and safety law.

The Löfstedt review recommended that people who work for themselves be taken out of health and safety law if their work posed no risk to others.

The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 places duties on self-employed people to ensure that they and others affected by their activities are not exposed to harm.

From 25th July, newly diagnosed victims of mesothelioma will receive help through a new support scheme, the Minister for Welfare, Lord Freud, and the Association of British Insurers have announced.

The new scheme will allow around 3,000 mesothelioma victims across the UK who are unable to claim compensation because they cannot trace a liable employer or employers’ liability insurer to receive approximately £300 million in payments in the first 10 years.

Although the majority of people are able to claim compensation through the employers’ liability insurance held by their employer, more than 300 mesothelioma sufferers a year currently lose out on compensation because they are unable to trace a liable employer or employers’ liability insurer.

The NHS Medical Director’s expert group, which has been looking at PiP breast implants, has published its final report.

The findings of the group include:

• Exhaustive world-wide testing of the PiP gel material has not revealed anything which could cause a long-term threat to human health – they are not toxic nor carcinogenic.
• They do, however, have a higher rupture rate – around two times higher. The rate of rupture appears to be around six to 12% after five years, rising to 15 to 30% after 10 years (this compares to 10-14% after 10 years for other brands of implants).
• PiP implants have a higher concentration of certain compounds called siloxanes – chemically similar to silicone but of a lower molecular weight and found in many consumer products, including hair and skin care products, antiperspirants and deodorants – but this does not present a health risk.
• Although the contents are not harmful and the gel has not been shown to contain any toxic substances, the inferior mechanical strength of the implants led the group to consider this a substandard product.

The expert group has said that the advice to women who have PiP implants remains unchanged. It is expected that all providers of PIP implants will contact their patients. If women are unsure of the make of their implant they should contact their surgeon or provider.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has served an Improvement Notice on an Edinburgh company for alleged failures to adequately control the risk of legionella in a cooling tower.

The Notice was served for a failure to devise and implement a sustained and effective biocide control programme in one cooling tower.

HSE visited the company as part of an ongoing investigation into a Legionnaires disease outbreak in South West Edinburgh. Visits to other companies are ongoing.