Safety Signs News

Employers have 'just as great' duty of care to visiting employees

8th November 2010 | Health and Safety Signs

Posted by Jason Nicholls.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has reminded businesses that they need to offer the same standards to visiting employees, such as the use of health and safety signage, as they do to their own, following the prosecution of a manufacturing business.

Newcastle-under-Lyme Magistrates heard how a visiting lorry driver to Recticel Limited, a manufacturing firm which has premises in Stoke-on-Trent, broke his back when a pile of insulation board fell on him in October 2009.

The 52-year-old was in the process of delivering goods to the firm's site when the boarding knocked him into his trailer.

He suffered multiple spinal fractures and a serious head injury and is thought to need long-term rehabilitation.

Recticel pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, was fined £6,238 and ordered to pay £11,762 in costs.

Commenting on the prosecution, HSE inspector Lyn Mizen reminded employers that the duty of care they offer workers visiting their premises must be the same as the one they give their own.

"Every year in the delivery and haulage industry there are a number of workplace fatalities and serious injuries as a result of falling objects," he said. ADNFCR-2754-ID-800221827-ADNFCR