When there is no action taken regarding the reason for the inspection, but lots of action points regarding everything else
What happened?
The HSE visited a food production factory to investigate an incident where a worker had fallen from a ladder.
During the investigation, the HSE inspector identified a number of other safety risks at the bakery, and with the help of experts from the Health and Safety Laboratory identified that workers were being exposed to six times the legal limit of flour dust.
The inspector also discovered that the bakery had no control measures in place to extract the dust, which can cause occupational asthma, and workers were sweeping it away with brooms rather than using vacuums. Employees had been issued facemasks but had not been trained in how to wear them, and, as a result, many were wearing them upside down.
In addition, the company also failed to provide lifting equipment for workers who were manually lifting 25kg sacks of ingredients continually for twelve-hour shifts. No risk assessment had been carried out for this method of work and no manual-handling aids were provided.
The HSE issued ten improvement notices to the company, covering not just the flour dust breaches, but also machine guarding, controls for noise exposure, provision of lifting equipment, a mandate to seek professional health and safety advice, and barriers to be installed to separate vehicles and pedestrians. No action was taken in relation to the ladder fall.
The HSE inspector said: “Flour dust can cause occupational asthma, which is a debilitating illness for which there is no known cure. Each year there are about three thousand new cases of work-related respiratory diseases yet simple measures such as proper ventilation and extraction can control this.”
Legal Outcome
The food production company pleaded guilty to breaching reg.5 and reg.7 of the MHSWR 1999 and reg.7 and reg.11 of the COSHH Regulations 2002. It was fined £1000 for each breach and ordered to pay £6000 in costs.
What can we learn from what happened?
Ten improvement notices is a lot. There is no evidence to support this claim, but it may be a record. Either way, there was plenty to interest the HSE inspector and it is an example of how the HSE (and local authority EHOs) will take a site visit they have to make in response to a RIDDOR report and turn it into an opportunity. The HSE’s job isn’t so much to ‘look’ for breaches, but it is definitely their job to ‘spot’ breaches. And it was interesting that in relation to the accident that promoted the inspection, no action was taken.
It is also understood that this was the HSE’s first proactive prosecution for failing to protect workers from exposure to flour dust.
Source of Information
SHP Online