Leading health firm sentenced after worker loses finger

Date:

10 November 2011

Release No:

Y&H/68/11

A company making health products has been fined after a worker's finger was severed in a blending machine at its factory in East Yorkshire.

The blending machine - the valve is the metal tubular part underneath

The employee had been using a ribbon blender to mix product ingredients unaware that a fixed guard underneath the machine had been removed along with a valve that needed a new part.

Bee Health Ltd, which manufactures health and nutrition products and owns several high profile brands, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after its investigation into the incident at Carnaby Industrial Estate, Bridlington, in March 2010.

Bridlington Magistrates heard another worker had taken the valve off the blender to clean, but found it needed a new part so did not reattach it. While the part was on order the blender continued to be operated but with a plastic bag to collect the product.

The rotating blades inside the machine

Several days later, a third employee was using the blender but was unaware of the missing guard and as he attempted to make a hole in a plastic bag, his fingers were caught in rotating blades. The index finger of his right hand was amputated and he suffered severe cuts and nerve damage to the middle finger.

Bee Health, registered at George Street, Wakefield, pleaded guilty to two safety breaches brought by HSE. They were fined a total of £7,000 and ordered to pay HSE costs of £4,887.65.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Denise Fotherham, said:

"The company didn't look at the risks involved with operating the blender. As a result, no one knew the valve should not be removed, not even the regular machine operator. He took it off to clean it as he just saw it as part of his job. Workers did not realise the valve formed part of the essential guarding of the machine.

"Bee Health also took no steps to prevent the machine being used if the valve was taken off, such as an interlock. A simple measure like that and adequate instructions for employees would have meant a worker not suffering this debilitating injury."

In 2010/11 manufacturing jobs accounted for about 10% of the British workforce, but for 21% of fatalities and 15% of reported injuries to employees. In 2010/11 there were:

• 27 fatal injuries to workers compared to an average of 30 in the previous five years - about a quarter of the number 20 years ago (RIDDOR);
• 17,599 reported non-fatal injures and an estimated 27,000 self-reported injuries. 11% of the reported injuries involved contact with moving machinery

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. Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states: Every employer shall ensure that measures are taken...which are effective to prevent access to any dangerous part of machinery or to any rotating stock bar; or to stop the movement of any dangerous part of machinery or rotating stock-bar before any part of a person enters a danger zone.
3. Regulation 3(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 states: Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work; and the risks to the health and safety of persons not in his employment arising out of or in connection with the conduct by him of his undertaking.

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Issued on behalf of the Health & Safety Executive by COI News & PR Yorkshire and the Humber