An investigation was conducted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following a serious incident on the 13th June 2023. A father of three sustained serious injuries after falling more than 25 feet (7.5 metres) whilst manually carrying roof tiles down a ladder attached to fixed scaffolding. Devon Air Ambulance took Mr Ian Smith to the hospital where he was put into an induced coma for five days. He has since made a fantastic recovery however still suffers from his injuries, which included five broken vertebrae as well as skull and rib fractures. His employer, Daniel Hooper (self-employed) was given a 16-week custodial sentence (suspended for 12months) following the incident..

National Scaffolding Week provides an opportunity to celebrate the industry and provide advice, information and valuable insights which can influence the direction of training in the industry. The campaign, which runs from 7th – 11th October 2024 will showcase the diverse range of career options available within the industry; highlight achievements of both organisations and individuals operating within the sector and aim to inspire the next generation to take up a role within the scaffolding and access industry. While many people look past or ignore scaffolding as they go about their lives, these temporary structures are a vital part of the construction industry. National Scaffolding W..

Managing hazards in a business is fundamental to maintaining the safety of employees. Under UK law, employers have a duty of care to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of all employees. This means it’s an employer’s responsibility to identify the hazards facing their employees and implement measures to mitigate them. It's fairly common for employees (and in many cases, management) to be unaware of the hazards they face regularly. Those who haven't encountered an accident often feel they aren't at risk. Additionally, many workers become accustomed to an unhealthy or unsafe workplace due to working in that environment for an extended period. The best way to prevent injuries..

Numerous health and safety accidents or incidents occur every day due to equipment being used in the workplace that is improperly managed, maintained or is not made for the intended purpose. Industries such as farming and agriculture, factories, warehouses and construction are all high risk due to numerous equipment types being used daily. Employers are required to ensure that all the workplace equipment provided to employees is regularly inspected and maintained in safe working order. They are also responsible to make sure that the workers using such equipment are skilled and competent to do the work safely. Numerous legislations revolve around workplace equipment such as the..

Forklift truck inspections can increase productivity by up to 25%. Additionally it will reduce breakdowns by 70% and lowers forklift truck maintenance costs by 25%. Depending on the type of forklift truck, costs and technical sophistication, a broad spectrum of maintenance strategies should be applied. A faulty forklift truck may significantly slow or completely halt your entire production process. Poor maintenance strategies can reduce the overall productive capacity of a warehouse by 5 to 20 percent. “Predictive maintenance increases equipment uptime by 10 to 20% while reducing overall maintenance costs by 5 to 10% and maintenance planning time by 20 to 50%" Why Preve..

An engineering firm in Perth has been fined £10,000 after an employee lost his little and ring finger. The worker, employed by Edwards Engineering (Perth) Limited, had been carrying out maintenance work on a grain dryer at East of Scotland Farmers on 28 June 2020. He inadvertently placed his hand into the blades of an unguarded rotary fan in the grain dryer. The fan was rotating at 1200 revolutions per minute when it came into contact with the worker’s hand. He was off work for seven weeks following the incident. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into this incident found Edwards Engineering (Perth) Limited had failed to risk assess the task that the emplo..

A textiles company has been fined £60,000 after an employee suffered serious injuries their right arm in an incident at a factory operated by Pin Croft Dyeing and Printing Co. Limited in Market Street, Adlington, on 20 June 2022. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the employee had been operating a large fabric spooling machine when the brake malfunctioned. During an attempt to manually slow the rotation of the machine, he broke both major bones in his forearm when his sleeve was caught by a rotating spindle. Despite the company being aware of the risk posed by the moving spindle, they failed to either remove or suitably guard this part of the machi..

Show your Forklift Trucks some love on Valentines Day (and forever) - Give them quick pre-drive inspections to make sure they're doing ok ❤️ Monitoring all your forklifts and assessing their environments with regular (pre-use / pre-move) forklift safety inspections will help achieve a safer workplace environment for employees. Pre-use / pre-move forklift checklists will not only increase the likelihood of spotting a fault early before it deteriorates further, but it also provides employees with regular reminders of their safe working practices and ensures your company complies with PUWER and Forklift Health & Safety policies. Forklift trucks are an indispensable piece of equipmen..

Good to Go Safety are pleased to announce the launch of a new inspection checklist system. The latest addition was developed following requests from numerous customers to add a Dumper Truck (otherwise known as a Tipper) to our checklist range. We take our customers' comments and suggestions seriously and after thorough research and development we are pleased to announce that our new Dumper Truck inspection checklist will be available to order from May 2023. Dumper Trucks cause around a one third of all construction traffic accidents, many of which result in deaths and / or serious injuries. Effective maintenance is an essential part of a tipper trucks safe operation. The maintenance pr..

The UK uses more that three and a half million vans for business activities. As part of targeted roadside checks, the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) stop around 15,000 vans each year to carry out spot checks on vehicles and issue prohibitions if necessary. A prohibition prevents van drivers from using the vehicle until the problem is fixed and can cost owners and operators up to £4,000 per day, per vehicle. 59.9% of vehicle prohibitions were due to a mechanical defect / failure and 83.9% of vans were overloaded. The top three mechanical defects for light goods vehicles that resulted in a prohibition were: 1. Tyre condition 2. Lights and indicators 3. Steering linkage. ..

Nearly 4000 trailers (including 730 caravans) were checked by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) between 2019 and 2021. The inspections carried out by the DVSA highlighted significant issues with many of the trailers and caravans. Of the 3,083 trailers (not a caravan) that were inspected, 50% were non-compliant, and 41% were issued with an immediate prohibition (defects so dangerous that repairs are required prior to re-use). The data available shows that construction trailers had the highest prohibition rates (52%), compared to agriculture (32%), livestock (28%) and vehicle transporter (28%). However, analysts have advised that this data should be considered indicative ra..

TakeAIM is supplied with a number of pre-installed checklists for the most popular equipment types used for work. If TakeAIMs range of pre-loaded inspections don't have the equipment type you require, you can create your own equipment type on the TakeAIM dashboard. This enables you to create inspections, and ask the detailed question required for even the most unique piece of workplace equipment. If you'd like to see the equipment types available, plus what is included on each checklist you can watch the checklist videos on the Online Demo Area TakeAIM is an auditing, equipment inspection and maintenance app used to help companies manage workplace equipment. TakeAIM provides visibility..

The UK Material Handling Association have recently released their latest Safety Alert which looks at cold starting an LPG truck engine. This Safety Alert has been issued following some reports of users of LPG powered trucks experiencing issues with the start-up process. David Goss, UKMHA Technical Director, explains, “Investigations into the root cause are ongoing, but instances where a build-up of deposits in the evaporator (pressure regulator), flow regulator and shut-off valve have been identified. “The concern is that sticking valves could lead to a mixture which is too rich and therefore cannot be ignited. If there are then repeated starting attempts, this can lead to a release of..

It’s not always obvious where to start with managing driver risk. After all, there are so many different areas that need to be tackled. And how do we know whether what we’re doing is good or bad, or whether we have any glaring gaps. It’s easy to feel like we’re just going round in circles. There is a simple process that can help you, based around four easy-to-understand steps: 1. Benchmarking – Do I need to improve? 2. Gap Analysis – If I need to improve, where do I start? 3. Action – How do I make improvements? 4. Check – How big were the improvements? Driving for Better Business has created a range of free online tools that can help you with all these key steps. Benchmarking s..

I don't know about you, but whenever i see the husk of a blown out tyre at the side of a dual carriageway / motorway, it gives me the chills. The rubber fragments and skid marks weaving across the lanes is a firm reminder that tyre blowouts are common and extremely dangerous. Whilst analysing almost 400,000 cars over a 21 month period, Evans Halshaw found that on average 26% of UK motorists had at least one illegal tyre. Read Evans Halshaws full findings - click here Workers such as HGV drivers are more likely to experience a tyre blowout and although they are trained on how to recover from a blowout, tyre blowouts are extremely unpredictable and can cause even the best drive..