Health and Safety

  The construction industry is one of the most dangerous industries to work within in the UK. According to the Health and Safety Executive the construction industry accounts for 22 per cent of all fatal injuries to employees and 10 per cent of all r...

  Scottish Coal was recently fined £6,000 after pleading guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The breaches lead to the severe injury of an employee, James Hunter in a workplace accident. The accident occurred when a l...

  The construction industry is a high risk industry. For those working in construction I’m sure it will come as no surprise that although the industry accounts for only 5 per cent of workers in Britain, statistically the construction industry ...

  You don’t expect to go to work and come home an amputee as a result of the fault and negligence of your employers but that is what happened to an engineer in Leicester recently. It is reported Benjamin Asare had been working as an engine...

  A recent report produced by Professor Andrew Watterson from the University of Stirling on the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) linked an increase in workplace injuries to the recent, dramatic fall in HSE funding. It was reported that a number of ...

  New guidelines from the UK Government could impact on the length of time available for people to comment on plans to cut health and safety legislation, according to the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH). The professional body...

  The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is consulting on proposals to simplify and clarify the reporting of injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences. The move follows a recent report which recommended the removal of unnecessary health and safety...

  The TUC have published a Report which shows that an astonishing 1 in 5 workers are being forced to pay for their own Protective Equipment out of their own pockets.   The PPE Regulations are designed to protect employees from injuring...

  It has been reported that techniques used to prevent workers deaths throughout the Olympic build could be rolled out to improve safety on other construction projects. During the Olympic build health and safety was at the forefront. This result...

  The Health and Safety Executive are urging businesses to do more to protect workers and members of the public from exposure to legionella.  They have identified common failings in legionella control from a review of outbreaks of Legionnaires&...

  Mrs Thom reassures me that when David Cameron vowed to stamp out the Health & Safety monster he wasn’t talking about me. He was however unwittingly threatening to increase the likelihood of people like you and I suffering a personal inju...

  Did anyone see the Youtube video about a Health and Safety Demonstration that went wrong?  Mrs Thom brought it to my attention and we have been having a chuckle about it.  I know that Health and Safety is not a laughing matter but this v...

  I had only just finished reading about how dangerous the farming industry is when I read that a Scottish salmon farming company had been fined £70,000 after a worker drowned at its site at Loch Heather. The worker tragically lost his life...

  A Fife farming company received a fine of £20,000 recently after a worker suffered serious injuries to his right foot after in became trapped in a piece of machinery. Peter Ednie worked for R Todd and Company in Fife. On the day of the a...

  I was horrified to see that a normal day at work ended up with a visit to hospital for 11 people who were involved in an accident at work at a landfill site in Fife.  Nine workers and 2 paramedics were treated for accident related injuries. ...

  Farming company, GJ Orr, has been fined £112,500 after a worker was crushed to death between the rollers of a potato harvester.  Keth Wannan’s arms and legs were caught in the machine and he was only freed after the harvester was ...

  I was very surprised to see a company such as Marks & Spencer being fined for potential asbestos exposure.  The recent court case revealed that customers, staff and contractors were put at risk to exposure to asbestos in 2006 and 2007 in ...

  I saw that yet another Scottish firm has been fined over the death of a worker.  Whiteinch Demolition Ltd who are based in Bishopbriggs pled guilty to Health and Safety breaches at Glasgow Sheriff Court after Bernard McCarroll died whilst dis...

  I was shocked to read in the news that companies are still breaching health and safety regulations and causing needless deaths.  I read that Vion Food was fined £100,000 after a worker was run over and killed by a forklift truck in West...

  I was shocked to read that health and safety failings led to an employee at Lowmac Alloys being crushed between two skips.  The company were rightly fined £80,000 by the Health and Safety Executive but this is an accident that, if all t...

  No one expects to go through what Danielle Ormond went through a few years ago.  She was working in the Drumtochty Arms in Aberdeenshire when there was a gas explosion and she got buried under the rubble.  Luckily she managed to get out ...

  Network Rail has been fined £3 million for the Potters Bar Train crash for Health and Safety Failures.  The accident killed 6 rail passengers and one pedestrian walking near the station when the train was derailed. The company admitt...

  A company based in Stonehaven, East Coast Viners Grain LLP has been fined £4,000 after pleading guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The breaches resulted in an employee of the company sustaining injuries after he fell...

  I was dismayed to read in the news about the 49 year old diver who died while working on the Acergy Osprey Vessel. It is thought that the diver suffered a heart attack. Emergency services were called, however, by the time the helicopter had made t...

  I was just reading that two Scottish companies have just been fined a total of £400,000 for breaches of health and safety legislation that resulted in the death of a stonemason’s labourer at a Glasgow Construction site. James Kelly ...

  My friends at Thompsons have dealt with a number of compensation claims for people who have had accidents and sustained loss and injury on a construction site.  Some of the people Thompsons have represented suffered extremely serious injuries...

  A Tyneside construction company has been fined after a worker suffered serious injuries following a fall from unsafe scaffolding. The company, Ian Allan Building Contractors Ltd, was prosecuted successfully by the Health and Safety Executive fo...

  A paper making company in Fife has been fined £260,000 after a worker fell through a roof and sustained fatal injuries. Thomas Sturrock was cleaning the roof when it collapsed and he fell through landing on the concrete floor. Tragically Tho...

  I was horrified to learn that faulty hospital suction equipment could have contributed to the deaths of seven people and that there was over 100 serious incidents involving suction equipment in the last five years.  A problem with the suc...

  Over the course of the weekend, two men have lost their lives in separate farming accidents.  The fatal accidents both happened in Aberdeenshire.  One accident involved a 62 year old man who was working on machinery when he was injured b...

  I was shocked to read the results of a recent report prepared by the Rail Safety and Standards Board.  They have found that between 500 and 600 injuries to rail workers might not have been reported between 2005 and 2010.  The main reason...

  I was very shocked to read that the number of work related deaths in Edinburgh and the Lothians has risen in the past year.  This has led to warnings to employers to take health and safety seriously. The figures that have been released fo...

  The Health and Safety Executive have issued a safety warning regarding scissor lifts. There have been a number of workplace accidents involving the scissor lifts, which have resulted in employees sustaining injury. Tragically, five people in Europ...

  BT were recently fined £300,000 after a worker sustained fatal head injuries during the course of his employment.   David Askew, a power construction engineer, employed by BT fell from a wooden ladder in October 2006 while installing...

  Employers ought to remember that they can not forget about the safety of their staff at the office Christmas party. A court in Australia recently decided that an employee who injured her back while helping out a her employers Christmas party ou...

  Ever since I was a plasticine toddler I have been hearing stories from my Friend McKenzie about the dangers of working offshore.  McKenzie is an older more hardened piece of plasticine than me and has spent the majority of his life on the rig...

  My friends at Thompsons have been helping people who have asbestos related diseases for many years.  Many people think that asbestos exposure is an old problem as there are many rules and regulations in place to ensure that workers and member...

  I was interested to read that a company owned by former Rangers Chairman, Sir David Murray, were recently fined £50,000 after an employee suffered a personal injury. Fifty year old Iain Sutherland was left with a broken right forearm and ...

  It is like something out of a disaster movie - offshore workers exposed to nuclear radiation. But this is exactly what happened on a platform operated by Schlumberger Oilfield UK, who yesterday plead guilty to breaches of the Health and Safety ...

  Electricity is extremely dangerous and according to the Health and Safety Executive each year there are approximately 1,000 accidents involving electricity and around 25 people die as a result of injuries they sustain. In June 2008  Valen...

My good friend Frank Maguire of Thompsons Solicitors, an expert at winning compensation for clients in personal injury cases, kindly agreed write a post for my blog this week. Here Frank looks beyond the euphoria of the Chilean miners’ rescues to...

  A Scottish construction firm have been fined £10,000 after an Charles Wilkinson, an employee, sustained fatal injuries in a workplace accident. Charles Wilkinson was hit by a telehandler when it was being reversed the wrong way along a o...

  I was moved to tears this week watching footage of the 33 miners who had been trapped underground for 69 days being reunited with their loved ones, their liberty and their country. As someone who deals in health and safety law I was heartened to h...

  Every day me and  my friends at Thompsons Solicitors work hard to help improve Health and Safety for workers and members of the public.  I was pleased to see that Argyll and Bute Council have been fined £20,000 after the death of a...

  Positively recent statistics have revealed that there has been a decrease in the number of fatal accidents at work in the UK over the last year.   Thompsons are advocates for safer workplaces and work hard with employers, families and the H...

The Army has been given a sharp reminder of its legal duty to ensure the health and safety of our troops when they are engaged in non-combat duties, even if they happen to be working in a war zone. One of my colleagues helped the mother of soldier Rob...

Everyday I help tradesmen and labourers who have been injured while using power tools and other machinery win compensation. The vast majority of this equipment is owned by their employer   When they are using their own tools and have accidents th...

  I help thousands of people with accident compensation claims every week and really have seen it all.  However, sometimes even I am surprised at how poorly health and safety in the workplace is enforced.  Last week for example, Inverurie firm International Paper (UK) Limited were fined £6000 for an accident in which one of their workers lost an arm. The accident happened when the man got his arm caught in machinery in January 2009.  Investigation revealed that the safety barrier provided was completely inadequate to offer protection for workers. The HSE called the accident a “Dickensian-Style event” which should not have happened in this day and age. The man’s compensation claim continues.  

Some of you may remember the tragic drowning of seven year old Luke Hutton in September 2007 at the Olympia Leisure Centre in Dundee.  The organisation and training of lifeguards at the centre was insufficient and the alarm was raised only when another child reported Luke missing.  His body was found in a covered wave pool following a search.  Fatal accidents like this upset me firstly because they are avoidable by proper implementation of health and safety and secondly because no level of compensation will ever reflect Luke’s families sorrow.  The operators of swimming pool were fined £40,000 last week for breach of Health and Safety Laws.  Read the full story.