Health and safety training required after company fined
A food production company located in the West Midlands has been fined. An employee lost a finger due to an incident at work. The teenager was working at clearing the machine due to a blockage when his finger was severed. His right hand was actually pulled into the machine and into the rotating screw blade. The incident happened in November 2011. His middle finger was extremely damaged and had to be amputated. The rest of his hand was cut, but is healing. The HSE conducted health and safety audits to determine how the incident happened. During the audits, it was discovered the machine did not have proper guarding to prevent such an accident. In fact, the machine was bought unguarded. The young man was out of university for two months, putting him behind his peers in the plumbing course. He has finally managed to catch up and is making progress with his studies.
The company pled guilty to the health and safety at work breach. The company will pay £7,000 in a fine and £4,000 in court costs. The incident was clearly one of risk assessment not being conducted properly. The company should have realised the unguarded machine could cause an accident. It should have taken measures to buy a guard for the machine. If the workstation risk assessment had been conducted and proper fixes made the company would have avoided the fine.
