HSE targets manufacturing industries

HSE Press Release: E151:04 - 27 October 2004

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a new enforcement led campaign to reduce the unacceptable high number of fatal and serious injuries that continue to occur in manufacturing industries.

The nationwide campaign will see HSE inspectors targeting scrap metal, rubber, paper and wood industries over the next three years to ensure that correct procedures are in place for working on machinery.

During the past three years over 40 people have died as a result of incidents in the manufacturing industry, most commonly when cleaning machinery blockages or carrying out running repairs without the correct safeguards. Properly managing isolation and lock off procedures to secure machinery and ensure there is no power feed to the equipment lowers the risk of serious or fatal injury.

The campaign aims to:

• raise awareness about the risks and standards required for safe isolation and lock off;
• ensure, through formal enforcement, that robust isolation and lock off procedures are implemented; and
• ensure that employers have, or put in place, sound risk control systems for managing these procedures.

Chris Flint from HSE's Manufacturing Sector said: "Machines still kill people. HSE inspectors all too regularly investigate fatalities at machinery. It's not as if the risks of moving machinery are new - people need to stop and think before they work on a machine. It is not enough for managers providing safeguards and introducing a power isolation and lock off procedure and assuming employees will follow it. People need to be carefully trained in the procedure and supervised by a competent manager. Senior management must carry out regular checks to confirm the procedure is always followed. Anything less and people will continue to be killed."

Notes to editors

1. HSE's Manufacturing Sector covers a wide range of industries, including engineering, shipbuilding and repair, motor vehicle repair, textiles, printing, wood working, paper, rubber, plastics, metals, foundries, ceramics, quarries, glass, concrete, cement, and waste recycling employ around 4 million working people. Further information on using machinery safely can be found on the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/puwerind.htm

2. The numbers of fatal accidents occurring in industry are published on the HSE web site (http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics). In manufacturing, for the three years combined (2001/02 to 2003/04), for the industries with the highest rate of fatal injury, the numbers of fatalities recorded were: recycling of scrap and waste (11); manufacture of coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel (3); manufacture of basic metals (11); and manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products (10). There were 402 fatal injuries to workers in the eight years from 1996/97 to 2003/04 and 80 were due to contact with moving machinery.

3. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 impose a duty to provide and maintain suitable work equipment, to provide adequate information, instructions and training, to protect against dangerous parts, and to protect against risks while maintaining it.

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