The last NEBOSH Certificate course run by PHSC had a 100% pass rate! Congratulations to all involved.

The next NEBOSH Certificate Course dates are:
October 12th, 13th, 19th,  20th, 26th and 27th
November 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th
Examinations 16th and 17th November

To be held at our offices in Aylesford, contact Karen Fallows for details.
Fees are £1495.00 plus VAT

IIP registered companies may well be able to claim some of the fees back via a grant from Business Link - ask us for details or visit the Business Link website.

One of the requirements contained within the new Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003 is for agencies to obtain health and safety information relating to risks known to the prospective hirer. Before sending along a temporary worker, the agency will have to be satisfied that the hirer has taken suitable and sufficient steps to control the risks.

The Noise at Work Regulations 1989 are to be amended to comply with European requirements. The main change is to be a reduction of 5dB in the exposure levels at which employers will have to take action. In addition to first and second action levels of 80 and 85 dB(A), which can be averaged over a week, there will be a daily limit of 87dB(A) on personal exposure.

With some exceptions, the new regulations will take effect from February 2006. Copies of CD 196 ‘ Proposals for the new Control of Noise at Work Regulations etc’ are available free of charge from HSE Books (tel:01787 881165).

Comments on the proposals, to HSE, are invited by 21 June at the latest.

The Crown Prosecution Service are taking Barrow Borough Council to court over the deaths of seven people who contracted legionnaires disease, and 170 others who were made ill. This is the first time such a charge has been made against a local authority and one of its employees.

The deaths happened in the Barrow region in late summer 2002, after a maintenance contract on a 30-year-old air-conditioning system was cancelled as a cost-saving measure at a council-run arts complex. If convicted, Mrs Beckingham (the Council’s design services manager) could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The potential fine for the Council is unlimited.

A landlord and his non-qualified gas fitter have been jailed for five years and three years respectively after a faulty gas fire killed two teenaged tenants. The landlord, who was found primarily responsible, was also ordered to pay costs.

The sentences, handed out at Bury St Edmunds Crown Court after a Health and Safety Executive prosecution, are the most severe penalties ever imposed for gas safety offences.

In March, the Court of Appeal ruled that an employer could not have been expected to know about the risks of vibration from the use of orbital sanders before 1991.

In 1990, a report from Southampton University stated that no employee should use a sander for more than 31 minutes per day, and only once this view had become generally known were employers expected to assess and monitor the risk.

Well done to Claire Probets from WE Roberts for her winning entry for our latest competition.

The competition, open to all Appointed Safety Advisor Service clients, asked for the most appropriate caption for a safety-related photographic image.

Enjoy your champagne!