November 10, 2017

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In court

Safety failures cost quarry firm £30k

A worker whose hand was trapped in machinery suffered a chipped bone in his wrist and a partial degloving injury to his right hand in an incident at a quarrying company in 2016.

Redditch Magistrates’ Court was told how the injured person was cleaning a conveyor belt last April  at Wildmoor Quarry Products Limited, Wildmoor Quarry near Bromsgrove.

According to the Health & Safety Executive’s investigation, the company had failed to adequately manage the risk of workers being injured when operating machinery. It also found that guarding was unsuitable to prevent access by persons to dangerous parts of machinery.

Pleaded guilty

Wildmoor Quarry Products Limited of Telford, Shropshire has pleaded guilty to Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was fined £30,000 with costs of £11,174.17.

Speaking after the hearing HSE Quarries Inspector Catherine Pickett said: “This incident could so easily have been avoided by the company if it had provided adequate training and put in place safe working practices for cleaning and maintaining conveyor belts.

“Duty holders have the responsibility to ensure all dangerous machinery has the appropriate level of guarding to enable safe operation and maintenance, including cleaning operations.”

Approaches to managing the risks associated Musculoskeletal disorders

In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, we hear from Matt Birtles, Principal Ergonomics Consultant at HSE’s Science and Research Centre, about the different approaches to managing the risks associated with Musculoskeletal disorders.

Matt, an ergonomics and human factors expert, shares his thoughts on why MSDs are important, the various prevalent rates across the UK, what you can do within your own organisation and the Risk Management process surrounding MSD’s.

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