On 1 October 2006, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 will finally come into force. The Order was scheduled to take effect this April, but was delayed because the enforcement authorities had omitted to arrange for guidance documents to be available in time.

We outlined the reforms in issue 10 of Safety News – a newsletter exclusively for customers of the PHSC plc Group of companies - explaining that there is to be a greater emphasis on fire prevention in non-domestic premises. This will involve the abolition of fire certificates, moving instead to a  risk-based approach to fire safety. The guidance material has now been published, and can be ordered on line at a cost of £12 each (including postage) from www.healthandsafetybookstore.co.uk 

A Scarborough hotel has been fined £10,000, with costs and compensation of £1,500 paid, after a guest brushed his teeth with bleach.

Failure to properly manage the decontamination of the water system led to a solution of sodium hypochlorite being delivered through the taps.

Following the incident in June 2005, Scarborough Council discovered that the solution used was considerably over-strength for the purpose, and that the staff had assumed that guests were likely to have vacated their rooms at that time of day. Investigators were also critical of the absence of a documented procedure for the staff expected to carry out the work.

A council official who decided to cancel a contract for maintenance of an air-conditioning system was cleared of manslaughter at Preston Crown Court on 31 July.

However, Gillian Beckinsale was fined £15,000 under health and safety law after seven people died from legionnaires' disease as a consequence of her decision. Her employer, Barrow Borough Council, was fined £125,000. 

The Osborne Hotel was ordered to pay around £8000 in fines and costs after a worker chopped off his toe with a hover mower in the grounds. South Devon magistrates found that the hotel had not carried out a risk assessment and the worker was not supplied with safety shoes.

Torbay Council’s enforcing officer emphasised the need to think of all work activities, even those peripheral to the main business, when carrying out risk assessments.

For the first time in UK legal history, a company has admitted that a breach of safety legislation arose when a tired employee was killed on the public highway outside working hours.

The Produce Connection Limited, a company that distributes potatoes, admitted to Cambridge Crown Court that chronic fatigue was the cause of Mark Fiebig’s road traffic accident. Mr Fiebig had worked for three shifts of nineteen hours each, and a total of eleven consecutive days. He probably fell asleep at the wheel of his own vehicle when it crossed into the path of a lorry.

Although staff worked long hours by choice, the employer should have known that it needed to monitor and regulate working time where health and safety was at risk. Fines and costs of £54,600 were levied, and would have been higher were the firm not almost bankrupt.

An inquest has ruled that contract electrician Steven Bowles, who was killed at Aylesford Newsprint, died as a result of criminal negligence after he was electrocuted on equipment  installed at the plant.

The Crown Prosecution will decide whether to pursue a manslaughter charge against the sub-contractor employed to work at the site. If there is insufficient evidence the matter will be handed over to the Health and Safety Executive for a possible prosecution under safety law.