Workers at a government laboratory were put at risk of contracting a serious disease from bacteria they were handling without suitable control measures.
The Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) — an executive agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) — received a Crown censure from the HSE for safety failings relating to the control of biological agents at facilities in Devon and Surrey.
The safety regulator found that between January 2009 and July 2011 an AHVLA lab at Starcross in Exeter had not appropriately inactivated samples containing Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) — the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis — before sending them to its lab in Weybridge for genetic testing.
Working with M. bovis in its live form in a regular laboratory can cause severe disease and so requires specific containment measures in order to protect those handling it. However, suitable control measures were not put in place.
The AHVLA accepted a number of failings linked to the handling and control of samples. They include:
The Crown censure proceedings were taken in relation to the Agency’s discharge of its duties as an employer under section 2 of the HSWA 1974. A ‘Crown censure’ is the formal recording of a decision by the HSE that, but for the Crown immunity, the evidence of a Crown body’s failure to comply with health and safety law would have been sufficient to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.
HM Specialist Inspector Dr Keith Stephenson, the HSE’s lead investigator in this case, said: “The evidence brought to light by the HSE investigation would be sufficient to provide a realistic prospect of a court conviction against the Agency. This censure is the maximum enforcement action that HSE can take and should serve to illustrate how seriously HSE takes the failings that were identified at AHVLA.”
AHVLA chief executive Chris Hadkiss attended the censure at the HSE’s Basingstoke office on 29 April to accept the findings on behalf of the organisation. In doing so, the Agency has formally acknowledged there were health and safety failings.
In a statement afterwards, the Agency said: “AHVLA accepts that it failed to take all reasonable steps to ensure the health, safety and welfare of its employees by failing to monitor the ongoing effectiveness of the M. bovis heat-inactivation process. As a result, a small number of employees were potentially exposed to M. bovis. Potentially affected staff have been health-checked and there is no wider impact on public health.€ﾨ€ﾨ
“AHVLA has now undertaken a thorough review of its Standard Operating Procedures, updating them where necessary. Employees have also been re-trained in order to ensure that they work fully in accordance with those procedures.”
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