Risk, Health and Safety Information

Company fined for guarding failings after worker severs finger

A Staffordshire furniture company has been fined after an employee severed a finger in an unguarded machine.

The 61-year-old, from Stone, was attempting to clean an edge banding machine at Incube Limited's factory on the New Road Industrial Estate in Stafford when his left hand was caught by a rotating blade.

Stafford Magistrates' Court heard that he suffered a number of injuries in the incident on 9 October 2012, including severing his little finger.

An investigation by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the interlock safety switch on the machine had been defeated, allowing access to the machine while the blade was moving. It also found the company had failed to carry out a risk assessment for the machine since it was introduced in 2010.
Incube Limited, of Station Court, Girton Road, Cannock, was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay £1,025 in costs after pleading guilty to a single breach of Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

After the hearing HSE inspector Wayne Owen said:

"The woodworking industry has one of the highest incident rates in manufacturing, most of which are caused by contact with moving machinery.

"HSE produces a wide range of free guidance to assist companies in carrying out risk assessments, and ensuring that woodworking equipment is safe to use and that people are properly trained. In short, what happened to this employee was easily preventable had the company appropriately considered the risks from their work processes and most fundamentally, not removed the safety device from the edge bander."