New provisional figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reveal a fall in the number of workers killed in Britain in the last year – down to 148 between April 2012 and March 2013, from 172 in the previous year.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched three consultations on changes to the content of Approved Codes of Practice (ACOPs).
The UK Parliament has formally approved a new law that will amend the criminal liability of partnerships in Scotland. The Partnerships (Prosecution) (Scotland) Bill will now go forward for royal assent.
The Scottish Human Rights Commission and CELCIS (Centre of Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland, University of Strathclyde) have hosted an InterAction event in Glasgow.
The latest Department for Transport road casualty statistics show an increase in casualties for vulnerable road users.
An NHS Foundation Trust has been sentenced for safety failings after a vulnerable patient died following a fall from a first floor window of a hospital in Gillingham.
A recent study from Stirling University has highlighted the importance of unannounced HSE inspections to workplace safety.
Lighter nights all year round could help to arrest the rising number of road deaths, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).
Truro Crown court has heard that an elderly man with dementia was able to wander into another resident's room at his nursing home and fall to his death from a window. Reginald Gibbings, 89, fell 3.6 metres from the room in July 2008.
Dozens of construction sites across Scotland have been put under the spotlight as part of an intensive inspection regime by the Health and Safety Executive.
A Nottinghamshire demolition company and one of its employees have appeared in court after a worker suffered severe injuries when he was hit by a falling excavator bucket on his first day on site.
Plans to introduce legislation to protect people from legal action if they apologise for causing injury are “pointless and misguided” lawyers have said.
InjuriesBoard.ie has released details of its work in the first six months of 2012. Data for the period shows a gradual but consistent increase (4.1%) in claims volumes compared to the same period in 2011. The period also saw the emergence of issue-specific claims linked to Thalidomide and De Puy hip replacements.
Campaigners say a review of workplace safety must ensure that all updates to important guidelines are made in plain English.
The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has recently launched a new initiative aimed at reducing the number of people injured or killed when working in loading bays.
Government plans to abolish safety inspections in thousands of businesses across the UK will put the health of millions of workers at risk, the TUC has warned.
Campaigners have welcomed a decision by the Government to rethink its proposals to cut compensation payments for victims of crime.
Two nursing home owners have been fined after an elderly resident died following a fall from a hoist.
Two companies have been prosecuted after workers were exposed to potentially deadly asbestos fibres at a mill in Bolton.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) took legal action after finding dozens of damaged asbestos boards stacked up during a visit in October 2010.
Manchester Crown Court heard that neither company had put a plan in place to manage the asbestos in the mill on Tennyson Street, where several small businesses rent units.
HSE became aware of the issue when a contractor on the site raised concerns that asbestos insulation boards had been stripped out of unoccupied floors at the mill, releasing potentially deadly asbestos fibres into the air.
Inspectors issued two Prohibition Notices banning the removal of tools and other items from four floors of the mill in case they had become contaminated with asbestos fibres, and preventing access to the floors.
They also found that asbestos was present in other parts of the mill, occupied by tenants, but nothing had been done to protect it and make sure it was safe.
Asbestos boards were commonly used up until the 1980s to help insulate buildings, to build partition walls and as ceiling tiles. The boards only become dangerous if they are broken up and asbestos fibres are released into the air.
Fibres that are breathed in can become lodged in the lungs or digestive tract, and may lead to lung cancer or other diseases if large numbers of fibres are inhaled. However, symptoms may not appear for several decades.
Around 4,000 people die every year as a result of breathing in asbestos fibres, making it the biggest single cause of work-related deaths in the UK.
A recent study has exposed the distraction and danger to drivers of just having a mobile phone in the car, with a fifth of participants in a simulator situation moving their eyes from the road for more than seven seconds after simply hearing their phone ring.
The simulator study commissioned by esure car insurance reveals that motorists take 23% longer to respond to an unexpected occurrence on the road when trying to send a text message while driving – which equates to the vehicle moving 8.5metres ‘blind’ while driving at 70mph. This lag in reaction times proved larger than the increased reaction times of distractions of arguing children in the backseat (13%) or feeling stressed (4%).
The simulator study further revealed that posting a short status update on, for example facebook - an everyday temptation to those with a smartphone - had various effects in driver performance mainly causing motorists to move across their lane to a greater extent (up to one metre more than in controlled conditions), being less consistent in following distance and driving closer to the vehicle ahead.
These decreases in motoring performance occurred despite drivers slowing down – proving that a reduction in speed does not offset the true dangers of being on a smartphone and the dangers of updating a social networking status.
