A Leeds commercial printing company has been fined £100,000 after an employee’s hand was crushed by a laminating machine. The employee was attempting to fix a laminating machine when his right hand was drawn into the device and crushed between two rollers. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into the incident found the laminating machine was not adequately guarded and that the company failed to review existing risk assessments for the machine which required the production of a safe system of work.

A North Sea oil contractor has been fined £535,000 after a worker sustained life changing injuries following, in 2017, the uncontrolled collapse of a crane. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the company had failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks of the work and had failed to maintain the crane braking systems and equipment in a safe condition before work commenced.

A South Yorkshire manufacturing company has been fined £200,000 following reports that two of its employees had been diagnosed with hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). The HSE investigation found there was no hand-arm vibration risk assessment in place prior to, and at the time of the workers’ diagnoses, to identify what level of vibration the operators were exposed to. There were also no control measures in place to reduce exposure levels, with measures only being implemented following HSE’s intervention.  Health surveillance had not carried out annually and there was no initial health surveillance assessment for new operators. Additionally, referrals were not carried out in a timely manner for those employees displaying symptoms of HAVS.