Work Well Dorset team target motor trade

Date:

8 October 2010

Officers from the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities in Dorset will be carrying out a programme of inspections to businesses associated with the motor vehicle trade during October and November, including motor vehicle repairers, body sprayers/repairers, tyre and exhaust fitting premises and vehicle showrooms.

The main focus of this work - part of this year's Work Well Dorset work stream - will be to reduce the incidents of ill health from the use of hazardous substances such as isocyanate paints (also known in the trade as 2-pack, twin pack, or '2K'), which are one of the biggest cause of occupational asthma in the UK, with 50 sprayers being diagnosed every year, resulting in a lifetime cost in the range of £94,000 to £138,000.

Other topics areas, where inspectors will provide advice on practical solutions while seeking business compliance, include reducing accidents and injuries associated with petrol draining, segregation of the public from work areas, musculoskeletal injuries sustained from lifting and carrying, training of young workers, preventing injuries from slips, trips and falls, and seeking to improve worker involvement on health and safety.

Cllr Don Collier, a member of the Champions Panel of Work Well Dorset tasked with strategic overview of the initiative, said: "The campaign is targeted at both employers and employees. They both have a responsibility to help reduce the problem, which resulted in over 150 new cases nationally of debilitating occupational ill health during 2006-2008 to those working in the motor vehicle repair trade. This is a further very valuable piece of work being undertaken by the Work Well team."

The Motor Vehicle Repair project is just one example of the joint work that the Work Well Dorset team will be carrying out this year.

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement.
2. Work Well Dorset is an innovative project being operated by officers in the HSE and Local Authorities in Dorset which marries up the health and safety risks present in the county with the regulatory resource available, regardless of traditional enforcement boundaries and ways of working. This has included the use of flexible warranting which allow HSE and local authority inspectors to work in premises not allocated to them under the Enforcing Authority Regulations. The project was formally initiated in January 2009 and was funded until March 2010. Processes are now in place to take forward joint investigations and joint targeting/delivery of proactive work. It is currently managed jointly by Work Well Co-ordinators, drawn from the participating local authorities and HSE, each with a different area of responsibility to ensure the trialled and proven arrangements are sustainable and open to further development well into the future.
3. There is wide spread potential for work-related ill health in motor vehicle repair. Many of the substances used require careful storage, handling and control. Asthma and dermatitis are two of the main causes of ill health amongst workers in this industry.
4. Health and safety in motor vehicle repair and associated industries (HSG261) http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/hsg261.htm is a one-stop-shop for the MVR industry. It replaces two previous publications, Health and safety in motor vehicle repair (HSG67) and Health and safety in tyre and exhaust-fitting premises (HSG62), both published in the early 1990s
5. Free Copies of Safety in motor vehicle repair: Working with 2-pack isocyanate paints (INDG 388) can be ordered free of charge online at http://books.hse.gov.uk
6. Photographs are available upon request.
7. The following are available for interviews upon request through COI:-
   • Paul Kloss, Principal Inspector, HSE
   • Cllr Don Collier, Champion Panel Member, Borough of Poole
   • Helen Tebbs, Environmental Health Officer, Environmental & Consumer Protection Services, Borough of Poole
8. Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by COI News and PR South West