Health and Safety Consultants

An annual study of workplace health has found that too many British businesses are jeopardising the health of their staff because they are focusing solely on profit and productivity. The study which was recently conducted by Aviva Health found that the primary aim for 39% of employer’s is to foster a highly productive and flexible team, or maximum productivity for headcount.  47% of employees said that they feel much more tense at work compared to when at home and 19% believe that their bosses create a stressful working environment.

But it’s not all doom and gloom: 27% of employers said that their main priority is to create a motivated team that enjoys working together and 29% agreed that they could do with improving the work/life balance of their employees.

Dr. Doug Wright, principal clinical consultant at Aviva UK Health, said: “While employers are making some very positive moves towards creating a healthy workplace environment, the overwhelming priority is still on financial performance. In the short term, this strategy can sustain a business through a difficult trading period, but it will undermine business performance in the longer term by damaging staff morale and allowing conditions like stress to flourish.”

Pinguin Food Ltd, an international frozen vegetable supplier has been fined after a worker’s finger was amputated when his hand was crushed. The worker was straightening some boxes on an automatic palletising machine when the incident occurred. Even though the machine he was working on had an aperspex guard attached, the worker still entered the enclosure when the machine was running. His fingers got caught between the pallet and conveyor.

 The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) conducted an investigation and found that a number of employees had been given interlock parts which effectively overrode the safety systems in place and allowed access to the enclosure.

 The company was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay full costs of £3,500 at Boston Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Scott Wynne, an HSE Inspector, said: “Pinguin is a large international company and it is often assumed companies of this size adhere to health and safety policies at all times. The employee regularly gained access to the machinery, defeating the safety device using an interlock mechanism given to him by another member of staff. The automatic palletising machine can carry up to a ton of boxes so the employee could easily have suffered more severe injuries. Pinguin should have had robust supervision and monitoring that should have identified staff were overriding interlocks and stopped it happening.”

Comet has been fined £75,000 and ordered to pay £25,000 in costs after a roof worker fell to his death at its Wrexham store.

 Mr Alker was carrying out roof work but had not been supplied with a roofing harness. He fell 7.3m (24ft) through a fragile roof and died several days later.

 Debbie John, an HSE Inspector, said: “This incident could have been avoided if the roof lights had been protected and Mr Alker had been provided with appropriate safety equipment.”