Latest Health & Safety News

Government Department has fingers burnt over fire safety failings.

The government department in charge of fire safety policy for England and Wales has been served with an enforcement notice with regards to numerous fire safety failings.  The London head quarters of Communities and Local Government (CLG) received the notice on 16th February following an inspection by the Crown premises inspection group.

The notice originally served on Minister for Communities and Local Government, John Denham, lists breaches of 13 of the 15 articles in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRFSO) that impose duties on his department as a duty holder.  It also states a "Lack of national policy guidance and local ownership of fire safety management across the whole of the CLG estate."

The notice relates to an audit conducted last November and was recently brought to light after a freedom of information request.  A CLG spokesperson said the CLG's recommendations were in the process of been fully implemented.

This is an embarrassing situation for the CLG and follows very closely from the admission that the Fire Service College in Morton-In-Marsh had no current fire risk assessment in place when a vehicle bay caught fire destroying 11 fire appliances worth £1.3 million.

Duty holders should take this as a clear warning, that as far as fire safety is concerned nobody is safe from enforcement action and that, if in the case of the Fire Service College, your fire risk assessments are dated before the RRFSO they will be invalid and not provide a defence.

Health Protection Agency exposed staff to E.coli

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) was recently fined for exposing several employees to the risk of infection of E. coli.

In October 2007, staff were working at the Centre for Infections in Colindale, when an amount of the bacteria spilled onto the floor of the site waste discard facility, as it was being disposed of.

The HSE's investigation found that there was an overall failure to ensure safe handling of the bacteria which is classified as Hazard Group 3 waste. Biological agents, such as E.coli are classified into one of the four hazard groups 1-4 according to their level of risk of infection, with 4 being the highest.

Specifically, HPA had failed to assess the risk involved in the transfer and disposal process of waste such as E.coli and had not properly trained their employees involved in this work to ensure these processes was carried out in accordance with standard operating procedures.

Some of the equipment used in the transfer and disposal processes had also been identified as being defective 18 months prior to the incident, but no action was taken to rectify this.

HPA pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 at City of London Magistrates court and the agency was fined £25,000 and ordered to pay £20,166.10 in costs.

Following the sentencing, HSE specialist inspector Jennifer Higham, said:

"E. coli O157 is a highly infectious and potentially deadly bacterium and there are well established practices for handling this safely. But in this case, these practices were not met, exposing several staff and potentially their families to a real risk of infection.

"HPA should have developed and implemented a safe system of work for dealing with E.coli O157 and for transferring and inactivating Hazard Group 3 waste. Equipment should have been well maintained and employees should have had appropriate training.

"This was a serious breach of HPA's duty to ensure the health, safety, and welfare at work of all its employees."