CDH Risk Management

27/02/2024

02/02/2023

First aid is evolving..

21/09/2022

Check out the latest news

https://cdhriskmanagement.co.uk/category/news/

06/01/2022

https://cdhriskmanagement.co.uk/printing-firm-fined-after-employees-injured/

A commercial printing company has been sentenced for safety breaches after two employees were injured in separate incidents involving a printing press and a palletising machine. An employee of Precisi

06/01/2022

https://cdhriskmanagement.co.uk/waste-treatment-company-fined-after-employee-fatality/

A hazardous waste treatment company has been fined after an employee died when a forklift truck he was driving overturned and crushed him. A worker, employed by Lanstar Ltd at Cadishead, Manchester, d

05/10/2021

27/05/2021

As we start to get back into the swing of things remember to take time for yourself. So many people have not had a holiday from work because they have been working from home. The temptation to work beyond what is reasonable and healthy is huge.
Take care of you.

23/02/2021

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLmclSphDn0/?igshid=1lxuilg6dw3hd

18/01/2021

Swiss food multinational Nestlé has been fined £640,000 after an employee was pulled through a gap on a production line.

On 13 February 2016, a technical operator was monitoring a conveyor belt used in the manufacture of After Eight mints at the firm’s factory in Halifax, west Yorkshire. He was holding an emery cloth and placed his hand close to a gap in the machine housing. The cloth was dragged into the machine, taking his arm with it.

The employee was unable to reach any of the emergency stop buttons located around the machine from the position in which he was trapped. A colleague heard him call out but could not see him until he walked towards the line. He then hit an e-stop.

Bradford Crown Court was told the injured worker, who had worked for the firm for three years, was released by paramedics. He suffered a double compound fracture of his right ulna and radius and underwent surgery and the fractures were reduced with pins and plates. He returned to work after four months. Almost four years after the accident he continues to suffer from residual weakness in his right arm, which is heavily scarred.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigators found that Nestlé had failed to prevent access to dangerous moving parts of the machine, namely an ‘in-running nip’. The gap was large enough to allow access at the belt conveyor entry.

Nestlé UK admitted breaching regulation 11 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations. In considering the level of fine, the judge assessed the culpability and likelihood of harm as medium. For a large organisation such as Nestlé, this meant the starting point for the fine would be £300,000 with a range of £130,000 to £750,000.

With an annual turnover of approximately £1.6 billion, Nestlé is considered a very large organisation within the meaning of the Sentencing Guideline. Therefore the judge applied a significant uplift to £500,000 to reflect this.

14/01/2021

Have a look at the top 10 Health and Safety Prosecutions in 2020. Contact us for help and advice.

2020 saw some huge fines for the likes of Leadec Limited, who were fined £2m, Tesco, Phillips 66 Ltd and Costain.Watch a summary of SHP's most-read fines and...

23/12/2020

The operator of a hotel in Lincolnshire has been ordered to pay more than £250,000 in fines and prosecution costs after it failed to comply with a string of Improvement Notices.

South Kesteven District Council visited Stoke Rochford Hall, near Grantham, in May 2017 for a routine food hygiene inspection. However, the inspecting officer noticed a damaged electrical cable across a kitchen floor walkway and exposed cables in the dishwashing area.

He issued Improvement Notices requiring the electrical installation at the venue to be inspected and tested by a competent person; any work required in the electrician’s report to make the electrical installation safe; and where work was required, to provide satisfactory documentation that it had been completed. The officer and subsequently visited the hotel to find the notices had not been complied with. Despite giving the management more time to correct the failings, it failed to do so.

In court, the company pleaded guilty to eight charges, including failing to comply with an Improvement Notice and failing to report an accident within the statutory time period after a member of staff was injured in a fall at the premises.

23/12/2020

The operator of the world's largest nuclear site has been fined £320,000 after an electrician’s eyelashes were burned off and his shirt caught fire while working on high voltage equipment.

Sellafield was prosecuted following what an inspector described as an 'entirely avoidable' incident in which a worker suffered 15-20% burns at the site near Seascale in West Cumbria.

On 24 April 2020 Reece Hudson was assisting in a job to permanently disconnect a three phase 11kV cable known as HTF 148 at a substation.

Two authorised persons cut the cable and instructed Reece to cap and disconnect it on his own. He removed the cover from the front of the cable box, which had a green label on it indicating that it was safe to work on.

However, he had a limited experience of high voltage cable boxes. He expected to see three 'elbow joint' terminations, but when he looked into the box he saw three cable cores with 'straight boot' style covers. This led him to believe that the cable went up into the section above.

He went to the rear of the unit to try to find the terminations. There were no warning labels on the rear to indicate the presence of live conductors behind the covers and he therefore removed one of them.

He tried to remove the back panel but came into contact with the live current and was thrown back against the substation wall. The photograph above shows the burn marks.

His eyelashes were burned off and his shirt caught fire. He managed to beat out the flames and called the control room for help. He was taken to West Cumberland Hospital and then onto the burns unit at Newcastle upon Tyne.