New health and safety warning after Greater Manchester dental lab puts workers at risk

Date:

27 August 2009

Release No:

HSE/NW/021/09

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is urging companies not to ignore enforcement notices after a dental laboratory in Greater Manchester was ordered to pay £4,000.

Rossford Dental Laboratory Ltd, which is based on Chorley Road in Swinton, was served with an Improvement Notice in March 2008 after an HSE inspector visited the site and found it to be extremely unclean, putting the health of workers at risk.

The company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 33(1)(g) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, by failing to comply with the Improvement Notice within the two-month agreed deadline.

Rossford Dental Laboratory, which specialises in manufacturing dentures, gum shields and other dental products, was fined £2,500 and ordered to pay costs of £1,500 at Trafford Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 26 August.

HSE Inspector Matt Greenly said: “When I visited the site last year, I was surprised by the filthy state it was in and had no choice but to issue an Improvement Notice. It was especially disappointing as Rossford had previously received a similar Improvement Notice and had complied with it.

“I therefore expected the company to be well aware of the basic need to keep the site clean. But there were layers of debris everywhere, the sinks were blocked and waste materials had been allowed to build up throughout the premises.

“I agreed with the company’s owners that two months would be a reasonable period for the improvements to be made, but when I went back at the end of May the laboratory was in a similar state.

“Improvement Notices should act as a wake-up call for companies to improve their health and safety procedures, for their own and their employees’ benefit. Unfortunately, in this case, Rossford appears to have ignored the warning and carried on as normal.

“HSE realises that many companies are under a lot of pressure at the moment, but that’s not an excuse for ignoring health and safety. We will try to be understanding if people have genuine reasons for not meeting deadlines, but they can’t just hope they’ll get away without making any improvements.”

HSE issues enforcement notices when it finds serious breaches of health and safety regulations. There are two types of notices – improvement and prohibition. Improvement Notices require changes to be made within at least 21 days, and Prohibition Notices stop work from taking place until specific improvements have been made.

More information is available at www.hse.gov.uk/enforce or by calling the HSE InfoLine on 0845 3450 055.

Note to editors

Section 33(1)(g) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: “It is an offence for a person to contravene any requirement or prohibition imposed by an improvement notice or a prohibition notice (including any such notice as modified on appeal).”

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