Shropshire egg supplier fined for worker's fall

Date:

4 May 2012

Release No:

M28/12

A Shropshire egg supplier has been prosecuted after a female worker suffered serious foot injuries falling through a hole in the floor of a poultry barn.

The 43-year-old Shropshire woman, who does not wish to be named, fractured two bones in her left ankle and the heel bone in her right ankle as result of the fall on 26 July 2011. The injuries have prevented her returning to work at Staveley's Eggs Ltd, where she had been an egg packer for six years.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) today told Shrewsbury Magistrates' Court that floorboards had been taken up for building work immediately behind a door regularly used by the worker on an upper floor. No warning signs had been posted and no one had informed her of the repair work being carried out.

The woman opened the door outwards and fell more than two metres onto the concrete ground floor below, shattering bones in both ankles.

The court heard she spent eight days in hospital for an operation to have two plates inserted into her left ankle in order to stabilize the joint. She has since had a further operation on this ankle and suffers from poor mobility.

HSE prosecuted the worker's employer, Staveley's Eggs Ltd, based at Stoke-on-Tern, after an investigation revealed that no written risk assessments or basic instructions existed and that the flooring work was only verbally discussed. No safeguards to prevent a fall from height had been identified nor were any protection measures in place.

HSE inspector Lyn Mizen said after the hearing:

"This worker suffered serious injuries in this incident and has been unable to return to work. And after enduring a lengthy and painful recuperation process, she still suffers from restricted movement in her ankles, finding it difficult to walk very far.

"This incident could have easily been prevented if a suitable risk assessment had been carried out. Fundamental and basic measures such as nailing the door shut or posting warning signs had not been taken.

"Bean bags or air bags underneath the hole would have provided appropriate and relatively inexpensive fall protection for all employees.

"Clear guidance on working at height is available from HSE and it is regrettable that the company failed to follow this."

Staveley's Eggs Ltd of 'The Poplars', Warrant Road, Stoke-on-Tern, Market Drayton, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulations 6(3) and 11 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and was today fined £25,000 and ordered to pay £2,386 costs.

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce 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 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: "Where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury."
3. Regulation 11 of the of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: "Without prejudice to the preceding requirements of these Regulations, every employer shall ensure that (a) where a workplace contains an area in which, owing to the nature of the work, there is a risk of any person at work, falling a distance or being struck by a falling object, which is liable to cause personal injury, the workplace is so far as is reasonably practicable equipped with devices preventing unauthorised persons from entering such area; and (b) such area is clearly indicated."
4. HSE guidance on working at height is available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/falls/campaign/wahthebasics.pdf .
5. Visit http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/press.htm for further HSE press notices.

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by Regional News Network (Midlands).