Safe systems of work

The death of an engineer who was fatally crushed when a 20-tonne piston fell on him would not have happened had an adequate risk assessment been carried out beforehand, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector who investigated the case has told IOSH magazine.

Scott Crichton CMIOSH, principal health and safety consultant at WorkNest, identifies common health and safety policy mistakes – and how to get it right next time.

A report into the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin has slammed the production company for showing ‘plain indifference’ to employee safety.

Sainsbury’s has been fined £1 million after measures taken during the Covid pandemic to help organise orderly queueing at the company’s Newbury store left a customer facing life-changing injuries.

Scrap metal recycling firm Alutrade Ltd has been fined £2 million after admitting the corporate manslaughter of an employee “in an incident waiting to happen”.

Construction firm Carillion’s failure to construct a drainage system correctly in accordance with the designer’s requirements has been identified as the main cause of a passenger train derailment at Carmont, Aberdeenshire in 2020, the Rail Accident Investigation Board (RAIB) has found.

Staffordshire County Council has been fined £300,000 after pleading guilty to failing to inspect and maintain trees on a public footpath, leading to the death of a member of the public.

Little more than a third of the global labour force has effective access to employment injury protection, and there are significant disparities between high and low income countries, a global overview of recent developments in social protection systems reports.

A roofer and scaffolder who have been prosecuted over a fatal fall from the roof of a two-storey terraced house did not put simple preventative measures in place to avoid the incident.

Changes to cleaning process was not reflected in risk assessments, resulting in severe scalding when boiling water erupted out of a vessel.