Health and Safety News

In the light of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill tragedy, a safety and health lawyer from the UK has suggested that a global safety standard for the gas and oil industry be put in place. Bond Pearce LLP’s Hilary Ross strongly feels that consistent safety standards can help save lives and protect the environment. [...]

The Health and Safety Executive has brought charges against the Health Protection Agency for failing to follow proper safety procedures in its waste disposal unit at Colindale. The agency has been fined for this negligence.
An incident which occurred in 2007 brought to light the lack of safety precautions at the HPA. E coli O157 [...]

A 24-year-old worker’s death in a recent fire and explosion incident at the Lindsey oil refinery, Lincolnshire, has prompted independent investigation demands by the union Unite.
The man died when a crude oil distillation machine, stationed close to him, caught fire and exploded. As many as 50 fire-fighters were rushed to the spot to [...]

The explosion at the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot on December 11 2005 was the largest in peaceful times in Europe. It recorded a tremor reaching 2.4 on the Richter scale and the blast was heard more than a hundred miles from the accident site. The large scale fire and devastation followed after 250,000 litres of [...]

In the summer of 2008, workers at a project site of a Perthshire company were exposed to lead dust for few months. As a consequence of this exposure two workers had to be admitted to hospital due to serious lead poisoning. The families of the workers were also affected as the dust was spread to [...]

The new mission of the Government is to reduce the number of smokers to one in every ten people from the current one in five by 2020. It is considering various strategies to achieve this goal.
The smoke-free rules were enacted three years back and they categorised many places and vehicles as smoke-free areas. In these [...]

Nuclear operator Sellafield Ltd has been fined heavily after it admitted to breaching health and safety norms following a recent incident of contamination at one of its sites. In the incident that occurred on 11 July 2007, two contractors inhaled toxic dust when they were appointed for drilling a floor at the company’s Nuclear Licensed [...]

In a case that concluded recently, a factory worker has been awarded damages from his employer after a chemical leak in the company’s premises damaged his eye severely. This incident has underlined the critical need for safety norms to be deployed at workplaces by employers.
The 59-year-old worker who was employed with chemicals manufacturing company Ciba [...]