18 June Scottish Legionnaires Outbreak A third place in Edinburgh has been given an improvement notice to clean up their act in relation to the Legionnaires outbreak. The notice, served under health and safety law, relates to staff training, not the operation of cooling towers. A second person has died from the disease. He was in his 40s with underlying … Read More
11 June Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 Are you aware that these new regulations came into force on 05 April 2012? If not, here are some of the details. The actual changes arising from the new Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 are fairly limited. They mean that some types of non-licensed work with asbestos now have additional requirements, i.e. notification of work, … Read More
17 April HSE reporting change reduces paperwork for British firms A change to the rules on reporting workplace injuries will save British firms thousands of hours completing official paperwork. Employers now no longer have to report injuries which keep workers off normal duties for seven or fewer days. The change to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 1995 should see a … Read More
15 March HSE delays cost recovery scheme The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announced today that its cost recovery scheme, ‘Fee for Intervention’, is going ahead but will now not start in April 2012. The scheme is to recover costs from those who break health and safety laws for the time and effort the HSE spends on helping to put matters right … Read More
14 March Landmark fire case put in front of a jury The Fire & Rescue Service (FRS) has been pretty quiet recently – especially when compared to the Health & Safety Executive. A recent high profile case has changed this, however. What happened? Until the conclusion of this case, all previous convictions had been secured either in a Magistrates’ Court or by an individual judge. However, … Read More
14 December Are you driving? You shouldn’t be reading this then… There’s a story from across the ‘pond’ today, in America the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is the agency for investigating major accidents, has called for a complete ban on calling and texting whilst driving, even when using a handsfree device. The article cites the fact that more than 3,000 people died last year … Read More
23 October HSE Cost Recovery Proposals – Podcast Listen to the first Podcast from Mike Ellerby of LRB Consulting Ltd. Mike talks of the controversial HSE Cost Recovery Proposals. HSE Cost Recovery Proposal by Safety_Matters Read More
12 September Changes to HSE incident reporting have come into place From today (12th September 2011) new incident reporting arrangements to the Health & Safety Executive have come into place. From now on, only fatal and major injuries and incidents will be able to be reported by phone to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), with all other work-related injuries and incidents reportable under RIDDOR are … Read More
5 September HSE looks set to implement cost recovery, how will this affect you? The HSE recently outlined its plans to start charging businesses that aren’t fulfilling their legal requirements, and it now looks certain that these plans will come into force in April 2012. Previously, if you were found to be non-compliant with the law, you would expect an enforcement notice, a prohibition notice, or a letter from … Read More
25 May Don’t stop the inspector Recently two bed and breakfast owners have been fined for stopping a Fire Safety Inspector from entering their property. After many repeated attempts to gain access, the fire service had to take a more serious course of action, and prosecuted the owners of the bed and breakfast, a married couple, for obstructing inspectors in their … Read More