Council prosecuted after worker loses movement in hands

Date:

21 January 2011

Release No:

HSE/NW/73CheshireEast

A Cheshire council has been sentenced after a maintenance worker suffered a permanent loss of movement to his hands.

Cheshire East Council was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after the 56-year-old employee from Crewe developed a severe form of hand arm vibration syndrome.

The worker, who has asked not to be named, joined Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council as a mechanic in 1984 and regularly used heavy-duty vibrating equipment, including pneumatic drills and hand-held grinders.

South Cheshire Magistrates Court in Crewe heard that the council, which became part of Cheshire East Council in April 2009, first identified the early stages of the condition in July 2005. The worker was recommended for annual assessments but, despite being reassessed in 2006, he was not seen again until 2009.

He now has difficulty picking up small objects, such as coins, and his hands become very painful in cold weather.

Cheshire East Council pleaded guilty to two breaches of the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005 at South Cheshire Magistrates Court on 21 January 2011. The council, of Westfields in Sandbach, was fined £5,300 and ordered to pay £5,860 towards the cost of the prosecution.

Chris Goddard, the investigating inspector at HSE, said:

"The worker was first diagnosed as developing hand arm vibration syndrome in 2005 but the council failed to take any significant action for nearly four years to stop the condition getting worse.

"It should have limited the amount of time he spent using vibrating equipment, or provided alternative tools. Instead, he was allowed to continue with his job without any changes.

"If this action had been taken, the worker's condition could have been prevented from becoming serious. Instead, he has suffered a permanent loss of movement to his hands."

Nearly two million people in the UK work in conditions where they are at risk of developing hand-arm vibration syndrome. Information on preventing it is available at www.hse.gov.uk/vibration/hav.

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. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Cheshire East Council was charged with breaching Regulations 5(1) and 6(1) of the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005.
3. Regulation 5(1) states: "An employer who carries out work which is liable to expose any of his employees to risk from vibration shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risk created by that work to the health and safety of those employees and the risk assessment shall identify the measures that need to be taken to meet the requirements of these Regulations."
4. Regulation 6(1) states: The employer shall ensure that risk from the exposure of his employees to vibration is either eliminated at source or, where this is not reasonably practicable, reduced to as low a level as is reasonably practicable. 5. The court also ordered the council to pay a separate £15 victim surcharge, the proceeds of which will be spent on services for victims and witnesses.

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