Mersey shipbuilding firm sentenced over welder death

A Merseyside shipbuilding firm has been fined £120,000 over the death of a welder who became trapped while driving a forklift truck.

Robert Dunroe suffered life-threatening injuries while using the truck to transport heavy welding equipment at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead on 18 August 2010. He died in hospital four days later.

The forklift truck Mr Dunroe was driving when he became trapped

His employer, Cammell Laird Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders Ltd, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation found he had been able to drive the forklift despite not having any training.

Liverpool Crown Court heard the 62-year-old from Wirral had become crushed between the truck and a lifting beam used on a crane at the Campeltown Road plant. Another employee ran over to the vehicle and reversed it, releasing Mr Dunroe, but he died from his injuries.

The court was told that keys were routinely left in the ignition of forklifts, and that Mr Dunroe had driven a truck on several occasions without being challenged about his lack of training. No procedures were in place to inform employees who was and who was not authorised to drive the trucks.

Mr Dunroe's widow, Jane, said:

"Rob meant everything to me. We'd been together since we were 15 and we did everything together. He was just my life.

"I'd just retired and we were looking forward to spending more time together. Our friends are couples and I can't go out with them any more, as it just doesn't feel right.

"And I can't go to the places Rob and I used to go together. That feels wrong too."

Cammell Laird Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders Ltd admitted breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by failing to ensure the safety of its employees. The company, which has around 500 employees, was fined £120,000 and ordered to pay £12,294 in prosecution costs on 22 March 2012.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE Inspector Richard Clarke said:

"A company the size of Cammell Laird should have known better than to have allowed keys to be routinely left in forklift trucks, making driving a truck the easy option for employees wanting to transport heavy equipment.

"Mr Dunroe may well have thought he was doing his employer a favour by moving the welding equipment as quickly as possible, but instead he has ended up losing his life.

"The dangers of forklift trucks are well known in the manufacturing industry and Cammell Laird has since introduced new procedures to ensure keys are safely locked away, and that a list is available of trained drivers.

"If these procedures had been in place before Mr Dunroe's death then he may well have still been alive today."

On average, there are eight deaths and 1,500 injuries reported every year as a result of incidents involving forklift trucks

Huddersfield firm fined for safety breach

A West Yorkshire manufacturing firm has been fined after an engineer lost part of a finger while test running an unguarded power press.

Metal Closures (Huddersfield) Ltd was prosecuted after James Hill, a development engineer, was injured while helping to run and de-bug a new production line incorporating two power presses.

Dewsbury Magistrates' Court heard Mr Hill joined the team in mid-August 2010 to help resolve a number of teething problems. Although it was still at a development stage, the press line was already being used to produce up to 20,000 caps a day for whisky bottle tubes for a new business customer.

During the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution the court was told that on 24 August, the second press was tripping out regularly because of mis-feeds of partly formed caps being transferred from the first press. At one point the fault occurred again and the press tripped out causing it to come to rest with the clutch disengaged but with the flywheel still running.

The engineer went over to the unguarded press and pulled the crushed caps out of the machine tools with pliers and then inserted his hand into the mechanism to discover what was causing the mis-feeds.

At the same time, a technical manager had gone to the production line. He did not see the engineer crouched by the press and went over to the control panel to reset a number of buttons. The press started up again catching the Mr Hill's right index finger in the tools and severing it just below the second knuckle.

After the hearing HSE inspector John Micklethwaite said:

"Power presses are inherently very dangerous machines, as everyone in the manufacturing industry knows.  Metal Closures allowed themselves to be drawn into a situation where they were trying to supply a product from a troublesome new press line before it had been properly de-bugged and before it had been handed over to production staff.

"Metal Closures failed to apply normal safety standards to the production power presses. They should have been adequately guarded and technicians should not have been able to work on them until it was safe to do so."

Is asbestos training a legal responsibility?

The current Regulations place a legal duty on employers to provide information, instruction and training to any of their employees who are likely to be exposed to asbestos as part of their work.

The three main types of information, instruction and training are:

• asbestos awareness training
• training for non-licensable asbestos work – ie the type of work described in HSE’s Asbestos essentials
• training for licensable asbestos work

What is the ‘duty to manage’ asbestos and who has it?

The duty to manage asbestos is a legal requirement under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 (Regulation 4). It applies to the owners and occupiers of commercial premises (such as shops, offices, industrial units etc) who have responsibility for maintenance and repair activities. In addition to these responsibilities, they also have a duty to assess the presence and condition of any asbestos-containing materials. If asbestos is present, or is presumed to be present, then it must be managed appropriately. The duty also applies to the shared parts of some domestic premises

What is an asbestos survey and do I need one?

An asbestos survey is an effective way to help you manage asbestos in your premises by providing accurate information about the location, amount and type of any asbestos-containing materials (ACMs). While not a legal requirement, it is recommended that you arrange a survey if you suspect there are ACMs in your premises. Alternatively, you may choose to presume there is asbestos in your premises and would then need to take all appropriate precautions for any work that takes place. However, it is good practice to have an asbestos survey carried out so you can be absolutely sure whether asbestos is present or not.
The asbestos survey can help to provide enough information so that an asbestos register, a risk assessment and a management plan can then be prepared. The survey will usually involve sampling and analysis to determine the presence of asbestos so asbestos surveys should only be carried out by competent surveyors who can clearly demonstrate they have the necessary skills, experience and qualifications.
An asbestos survey will identify:

• the location of any asbestos-containing materials in the building
• the type of asbestos they contain
• the condition these materials are in

Following a survey, the surveyor should produce a survey report which details the findings. This information can help you prepare an asbestos risk register

Are changes planned to the asbestos regulations?

A public consultation running from 5 September to 4 November 2011 sets out HSE's proposals to introduce revised Control of Asbestos Regulations. This is to implement changes required to comply with the European Commission's recent reasoned opinion on the UK Government's transposition of the European Directive on the protection of workers from the risks of exposure to asbestos at work. The Commission reached a view that the UK has not fully implemented Article 3(3) of the Directive which provides for the exemption of some types of lower risk work with asbestos from three requirements of the Directive: notification of work; medical examinations; and record keeping.
The changes mean that in future (from April 2012) fewer types of lower risk work will be exempt from the three requirements. This means more work will attract the need for medical examinations, notification and records. Those likely to be affected are employers (including the self employed) who are liable to carry out short duration work on plant and equipment or buildings which contain asbestos materials and those who procure such work.
The public consultation is seeking views on: the proposals; the guidance to be produced to explain how the changes will work in practice; and the impact on business. The consultative document and the online questionnaire are available on consultation page, CD237 - Proposals on Revised Control of Asbestos Regulations.
The public consultation will last for 9 weeks closing on 4 November 2011. All responses must be received by this date. This consultation only applies to Great Britain; Northern Ireland is not included

What are the health risks from asbestos?

Asbestos is responsible for over 4000 deaths every year. Younger people, if routinely exposed to asbestos fibres over time, are at greater risk of developing asbestos-related disease than older workers. This is due to the time it takes for the body to develop symptoms after exposure to asbestos (latency). Exposure to asbestos can cause four main diseases:

• Mesothelioma (a cancer of the lining of the lungs; it is always fatal and is almost exclusively caused by exposure to asbestos)
• Asbestos-related lung cancer (which is almost always fatal)
• Asbestosis (a scarring of the lungs which is not always fatal but can be a very debilitating disease, greatly affecting quality of life)
• Diffuse pleural thickening (a thickening of the membrane surrounding the lungs which can restrict lung expansion leading to breathlessness.)

You can get further detailed information on these diseases from the HSE website.
It can take anywhere between 15–60 years for any symptoms to develop after exposure, so these diseases will not affect you immediately but may do later in life. You need to start protecting yourself against any exposure to asbestos now because the effect is cumulative.
Asbestos was a widely used material within commercial buildings, homes and machinery until 1999, when it was banned. This means that asbestos is common in the general environment. However, working directly with asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) can give personal exposures to airborne asbestos that are much higher than normal environmental levels. Repeated occupational exposures can give rise to a substantial cumulative exposure over time. This will increase the risk of developing an asbestos-related disease in the future.
The majority of the current fatal cases from asbestos exposure (approximately 4000 deaths per year) are associated with very high exposures from past industrial processes and installation of asbestos products