Around 300 individuals who allege that they suffered cancer and respiratory disease as a result of working at a former smokeless-fuel plant in south Wales have begun their fight for compensation through the courts.

Unite has withheld its support for the HSE’s draft manufacturing strategy, as it believes it will result in a decline in health and safety standards.

An electrical-components manufacturer has lost an appeal against a decision that the health of its workers was not adversely affected by strong smells generated by a neighbouring business.

To merge or not to merge – that is the question the man tasked by the Government with reviewing Britain’s health and safety laws will be pondering over the coming months, as he analyses the evidence submitted by stakeholders last week.

A company that manufactures storage products will appear in court next month to answer corporate manslaughter and health and safety charges after a worker died from injuries sustained in a fall.

A Midlands aluminium casting company has appeared in court to answer charges relating to a molten-metal splash that seriously burned one of its employees.

A maintenance fitter at a steel plant in Cumbria could have been killed when part of a 300kg roller-shutter door fell on him – but his safety helmet took the brunt of the blow.

A manufacturer must pay £200,000 in fines and costs after a night-shift worker was killed at a toilet-tissue factory in Barrow-in-Furness.

A supervisor who had only been in his role for four days, following two and a half months’ training, lost two fingers as he attempted to clean part of a large machine used for mixing animal feed.

A health and nutrition products manufacturer that supplies clients worldwide has been in the dock after a manager's finger was severed in a blending machine at its factory in Bridlington, East Yorkshire.

The Health and Safety (First Aid) at Work Regulations 1981 have, for the most part, served industry well by setting a basic standard for first-aid provision in the workplace. But, prompted by changes in the world of work, revised guidelines are due to be implemented in October this year. Maria Grundy considers how the new requirements will impact on employers.

At Wolstenholme International’s manufacturing site in Darwen, Lancashire, around 90 employees are involved in the production and packing of speciality metallic inks, pigments, flakes and powders. Consequently, the company needs a range of solutions to help protect its employees from the potentially harmful effects of solvents and fine dust particles used and created during the processes. Jo Partridge explains how the company looks after the respiratory health of its workforce.

Prime Minister David Cameron has nominated PPE manufacturer JSP for the ‘Made by Britain’ project – a joint initiative between the Associate Parliamentary Manufacturing Group (APMG) and the 1851 Royal Commission aimed at boosting the profile of British manufacturing.

By racking up more than 8700 days free of lost-time accidents (LTAs) in its manufacturing and sales and distribution sites, LINPAC Packaging has recorded its best ever health and safety performance.

A substance that is still commonly used in the manufacturing and engineering sectors to clean metal parts has been linked to the development of Parkinson’s disease among workers exposed to it.

The prime minister was uncharacteristically all for health and safety last week when he officially opened personal protection equipment specialist JSP’s new state-of-the-art industrial safety helmet manufacturing facility in his Oxfordshire constituency.

Significant strides have been made in the paper and board industry towards reducing incident and injury rates and improving overall health and safety performance.

BSRIA Instrument Solutions provides instrumentation to help companies ensure their products and services comply with statutory requirements.

Lift-truck manufacturer Crown says its new FlexRide floating operator suspension system is fitted to two of its new lift-truck lines: the WT 3000 series of powered pallet trucks and the RC 5500 series of stand-up counterbalanced trucks.

Crowcon’s TXgard-IS+ gas detector is fitted with electrochemical sensors, which are said to enable it to detect a wide range of toxic gases and oxygen.

Industrial safety specialist Castell says it has adopted an innovative manufacturing process to improve efficiency and benefit end-users, machine-builders and distributors.

Pilz Automation Technology says those who attend its machinery safety training courses can rest assured that they will benefit from knowledge gained by Pilz engineers and consultants who, for example, apply standards when designing safety circuits, and advise manufacturing companies on how best to comply with UK regulations.