Case Studies
Lancashire County Council fined over Hand Arm Vibration issues
Case Study 1
What happened?
Lancashire County Council of County Hall, Fishergate, Preston pleaded guilty to breaches of Section 2 (1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and Regulation 8 of the RIDDOR Regulations 2013. The Council was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay costs of £10,366,78.
RIDDOR Report
Manchester Magistrates’ Court heard that, in February 2019, HSE received a RIDDOR report from Lancashire County Council, relating to the diagnosis of a case of Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVs).
An improvement notice was served, however, a further ten cases of vibration- related ill-health, unrelated to the RIDDOR report, were uncovered and reported late. Four more reports were also filed, but these were on time.
Hand held grinders - 'Horrific death'
Case Study 2
A steel firm was been fined £150,000 over the death of a worker hit in the mouth by fragments of an "unsafe" grinding disc which exploded.
What happened?
Stuart Stead, 49, from Doncaster, was working at HI Quality Steel Castings Ltd, Sheffield, when he was struck by a shard of metal. Father-of-three Mr Stead died at the scene.
Two colleagues reported hearing a loud bang and saw Mr Stead collapse to the floor. When they ran to his aid they saw the broken visor and part of the disc in Mr Stead's mouth.
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the grinding disc "suddenly exploded", catapulting fragments across Mr Stead's work bay.
A shard went through his visor and hit him in the mouth.
'Near misses ignored'
The HSE said the disc was bigger than allowed for an unguarded tool, was attached using "unsafe combinations of parts" and had been running at twice the speed it should have been. The near-misses should have been a big warning flag to the firm that there was a serious risk that a worker could be severely injured or killed."
The Near Misses included:
- in 2011 a 230mm diameter disc suffered a blade disintegration and part went through the foundry roof;
- a sand disc attached to a grinder using an adaptor shattered and put a hole in a bench and shattered a light fitting 30 feet up;
- a disc flew off a grinder, being used by Mr Stead, which was never found;
- a cutting disc bounced off the stomach of another worker; and
- in the week before the fatality – a lump came off a disc Mr Stead was using and shot down the workshop hitting another worker under the eye.
HSE said despite some initial training in abrasive wheels, employees did not understand rotation speeds of machines versus discs and had free access to a wide variety of them, contributing to the prevalence of unsafe combinations.
The company also failed to monitor disc/grinder use so unsafe practices were not picked up and near miss incidents were not properly investigated.
HSE comments
After the hearing, HSE inspector Jill Thompson said:
“The safety of Mr Stead and others was not ensured while using hand-held grinders. If monitoring and supervision had been provided to ensure necessary precautions were followed, this tragic incident would not have happened.
“Employers must make sure that all work involving grinding is assessed for safety to make sure that poor or potentially dangerous practices are removed.”
