The professional body representing GPs has demanded the Government scrap its NHS reforms, warning that they will cause ‘irreparable damage’ to patient care.
Members of the Royal College of General Practitioners have written to the Prime Minister declaring their outright opposition to the plans.
via Royal College of GPs says Health and Social Care bill should be scrapped | Mail Online.
A company in Tonypandy has been fined after a worker’s arm was impaled by two steel bars.
Allevard Springs Ltd was prosecuted for failing to adequately prevent the risk of injury to employees using machinery after Steven Rowe was seriously injured while operating a machine at the firm’s Clydach Vale premises.
Pontypridd Magistrates’ Court was told Mr Rowe, 49, of Pontypridd, was working as one of two shift operators on a bar drawing line machine, used to prepare steel bar lengths for processing into springs.
During the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution the court heard that on 28 January 2011, Mr Rowe noticed the bars exiting the straightening machine he was operating were not hitting a sensor, causing problems with the alignment of the bars on the next part of the machine. This could have resulted in the bars jamming.
Mr Rowe entered the machine enclosure via a sliding door to adjust an air pressure regulator in order to correct the stop position of the bars against the sensor.
While adjusting the air pressure, two steel bars of 10.5mm diameter and approximately two metres length shot out of the machine, piercing his right forearm. The court heard Mr Rowe managed to deflect a number of other bars with his left arm before a colleague shut the machine down.
Mr Rowe suffered a broken right arm, had to have 14 stitches to his left arm, and still receives outpatient treatment at hospital.
The HSE investigation found Allevard Springs Ltd had not taken measures to ensure the exposure of a person to the risk of steel bars being ejected was adequately controlled, and that no measures were in place to prevent access to the machine while it was running.
Allevard Springs Ltd of Clydach Vale, Tonypandy, Rhondda Cynon Taf, pleaded guilty to contravening Regulation 12 (1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and was today fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £9,786.60.
via Company fined after worker’s arm is impaled by steel bars.
An international fencing manufacturer has been fined after a worker suffered severe injuries to his left arm at a production plant in Sheffield.
Betafence Ltd of Shepcote Lane, Sheffield, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for a serious safety breach following an investigation into the incident which happened on 7 August 2009.
Sheffield Magistrates’ Court heard how the employee suffered a dislocated elbow, compound fractures to his lower arm, and had parts of his skin ripped off as he tried to re-thread some wire through a machine block.
The worker, who has asked not to be named and has since left the company, was mending a wire break in one of the four rotating blocks of a wire drawing machine. Each block had a moveable guard fitted with an interlocking device which should switch off power to the block when the guard is moved out of position.
To re-thread the block, the worker had to lean into the machine. He had his left arm through the rotating block when the machine started moving unexpectedly. He has since had three skin grafts and two metal plates fitted to his forearm.
The investigation found that the interlock had failed to break the circuit and cut power to the block as it should have done, and as the worker leaned into the machine to repair the wire, it is possible he depressed the start or run switch inadvertently.
The court heard that Betafence Ltd had a system for checking the guards on its machines but it did not include checking the functioning of interlock switches on moveable guards.
The court heard that Betafence Ltd, which operates in ten countries and employs 2,000 people worldwide, had been convicted in 2003 in a prosecution brought by HSE for a machinery safety incident in 2002. Magistrates heard that the company, which traded as Bekaert Fencing Ltd and Tinsley Wire Ltd, had also been the subject of previous enforcement notices by HSE regarding guarding of machines in 2003 and 2005 plus several letters of advice about machinery guarding.
After the hearing, Inspector Jill Thompson said:
“The dangers of moving machinery are well known in industry and Betafence’s management of the risks posed to their workforce in this area has fallen below what is acceptable.
“This is an example of how a simple failure of a safety switch can result in life-changing injuries. Had the company included safety switch checking as part of the guard checking system, this incident would probably have been avoided.
“Prevention of access to moving parts of machinery is a clear duty upon employers and includes making sure that safety features of machines are maintained effectively.”
Betafence Ltd, which has its headquarters in Belgium, was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay £3,762 costs for a breach of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations.
There were five deaths and more than 550 major injuries in the manufacturing sector in Yorkshire and the Humber according to the latest 2010/11 HSE statistics. A further 1,900 less severe injuries were recorded.
via International fencing firm prosecuted for serious safety failings.
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=21768
KREMLIN, Okla. – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Zaloudek Grain Co. with four serious safety violations following an incident involving two 17-year-olds.
Both suffered leg amputations when they became caught in an inadequately guarded conveyor auger while cleaning out a grain flat storage structure at the company’s facility in Kremlin.”Employers who endanger the lives and limbs of their workers will be held accountable for putting them at risk,” said John Hermanson, OSHA’s regional administrator in Dallas.
“In this case, the lives of two teenagers will never be the same.”The incident occurred last August. Violations from the investigation that resulted include failing to affix or secure the machine guard over the moving conveyor auger, ensure the storage structure’s exit was free and unobstructed, provide exit signs from the storage structure and provide training for workers assigned to enter grain structures. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known. Proposed penalties total $21,500.
Originally posted 2010-08-05 22:09:54.
A dog owner has been fined £200 with £250 costs after Blackpool magistrates found him guilty of breaching a Noise Abatement Notice.
The court heard how Kevin Allen, of The Close, Kirkham, had been served the Notice by Fylde Council environmental health officers in February 2009 after a long history of having noisy dogs.
Allen’s three dogs continued to bark constantly after the Notice was served, causing noise nuisance to neighbours.
via Fylde Borough Council • Dog owner fined £200.
http://news.ontario.ca/mol/en/2012/01/marathon-drilling-co-ltd-fined-65000-after-worker-injured.html
Ottawa, ON – Marathon Drilling Co. Ltd., a Greely, Ontario, construction company, was fined $65,000 for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act after a worker was injured.On October 7, 2010, the company was drilling at a construction project on Albion Rd. in Ottawa. The company was using a boom truck to lift and move construction materials needed for the drilling work. A worker was helping to place an auger being moved by the boom truck. The worker was holding the chains attaching the auger to the boom truck’s hook when the truck came into contact with an overhead electrical conductor. The worker received an electric shock and was seriously burned.
http://news.ontario.ca/mol/en/2012/02/hotel-fined-70000-after-worker-injured.html
Toronto, ON – Sheraton Toronto Airport Hotel and Conference Centre, of Etobicoke, was fined $70,000 for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act after a worker was injured.On May 1, 2010, a maintenance worker was changing a fuse in a 600-volt electric panel. When the worker attempted to pull out the fuse with metal pliers, there was an explosion. The worker suffered first, second and third degree burns.Sheraton Toronto Airport Hotel and Conference Centre pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that the worker did not use a tool capable of conducting electricity near the electric panel.
WUHAN – The list of 11 victims, one dead and 10 missing, in a boat accident in Central China’s Hunan province, was released Friday by local officials from the neighboring province of Hubei where the victims came from.
The sand-carrying boat capsized at around 4 am Thursday in high winds in a tributary of the Dongting Lake, China’s second largest freshwater lake, located in Hunan, the maritime bureau in Hunan said in a press release Thursday.
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Eight men have drowned and five others are missing after a boat loaded with 25 people believed to be from Afghanistan and Iraq overturned off southern Malaysia, police said on Wednesday.
Police found the bodies of eight men on a beach in southern Johor state early Wednesday, said Mr Che Mahazan Che Aik, a district police chief, while 12 others managed to swim to shore after their boat overturned.Search and rescue operations were underway to find five others believed to be missing at sea, Mr Che Mahazan told AFP. Authorities were also still searching for the boat’s skipper.
A Learjet carrying members of the prominent Pueblo DeRose family slid off the runway Thursday night at Pueblo Memorial Airport.No one was injured in the 7:15 p.m. incident.”Everyone is good. No one’s injured, thank goodness,” said Dan DeRose, adding that the plane’s passengers were mostly family intending to go on a short vacation.Fire crews and police officers said the DeRoses were headed to Las Vegas to watch the Super Bowl.
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