NHS Foundation Trust fined following maintenance worker’s burns

Lauren Applebey

Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (KGH) has been fined after a maintenance worker received serious burns to the lower half of his body whilst stripping down a steam boiler.

On 5 November 2012, the KGH employee was undertaking the work to the boiler for periodic examination.

The worker received his injuries whilst removing the crown valve from one of the steam boilers. The system only had a single point of isolation, instead of two, and this single point did not prevent steam leaking back into the section of the system he was working on.

It was heard that KGH:
• had no system for assessing and controlling the risks their employees were exposed to;
• did not know what training their maintenance employees had received; and
• maintenance employees were not under suitable supervision whilst working there.

The NHS Foundation Trust of Rothwell Road, Kettering, appeared at Northampton Magistrates’ Court and was fined £7,000 with full costs of £1,926 and a victim surcharge of £15 after pleading guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

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