HSE Warns Business Over Staff Training

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) today warned North West employers to ensure that staff has proper training and information about the equipment and materials with which they are working.

The warning comes on the day after Macclesfield Borough Council was fined a total of £6,000 ordered to pay £3,747 costs after pleading guilty to two HSE charges at Macclesfield Magistrates Court.

HSE Inspector Catherine Catchpole says:

"The charges were brought after council employee Andrew McKeith failed to return from work. He was reported missing by his wife after spending a day spraying the herbicide 'Enforcer' at recreation grounds throughout the borough.

Mr McKeith had not been trained in proper use of the herbicide nor was he given the correct protective equipment and therefore suffered prolonged exposure to its effects. As a result, when he returned to his normal workplace he became disorientated and has no recollection of where he spent the night of 12 April 2006. He was not found until the following morning when a colleague found him wandering in Bollington Recreation Park.
It is vital that businesses of all types and size realise that they must ensure their staff has been properly trained in using equipment and materials and are also given the correct protective equipment to reduce the risks from using it."

Macclesfield Borough Council was fined £3,000 after pleading guilty to a breach of Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in that it failed to ensure the safety of all employees engaged in spraying herbicide and failed to provide them with adequate information, instruction and training. It was also fined £3,000 after pleading guilty to a breach of Section 3(1) of the same Act in that it failed to protect persons not in their employment from the work activity.

Notes:

Section 2(1) of the HSWA states: "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."

Section 3 (1) of the HSW states, "It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety."

Fines for breaches of both sections are a maximum of £20,000 if heard in a Magistrates Court or an unlimited fine if heard in a Crown Court.

Source: GNN


 
 
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