The perils of ignoring good advice

The owner of a stone masonry company has recently been successfully prosecuted by the HSE for failing to protect the health of his employees by exposing them to risks likely to cause long term and possibly life changing conditions.

Two major issues were identified:

• Firstly, the company did not provide face masks where necessary and those employees who did have masks were not face fitted correctly or unsuitable because of facial hair.
• Secondly, no risk assessments or health monitoring was done for the use of vibrating tools such as air hammers and as a result two workers were diagnosed with hand-arm vibration syndrome.

If this was not bad enough the owner of the company had previously received advice about these issues from the Health and Safety Executive.

Speaking after the hearing Health and Safety Executive inspector Fiona McGarry said: “Serious irreversible ill health or even death can result from exposure to silica and hand arm vibration syndrome is a permanent disabling condition. Employers need to take action to ensure they are providing adequate control to protect the health of employees.”

So what was the cost of ignoring the HSE advice?

The owner of the company was fined a total of £2,500 and was ordered to pay £1,921.29 in costs after pleading guilty to offences under Regulation 7 (1) of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 and Regulation 5 (1) and 7 (1) of the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005.