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A 24-year-old labourer, in only his second week on the job, stepped backwards and fell through an unprotected stairwell opening. He dropped a full storey onto concrete, was knocked unconscious, and had to be rescued by the fire service. The spinal injuries he suffered have stopped him returning to physical work. The company was fined

A worker suffered life-changing injuries when a 1.2-tonne crate fell from a forklift truck. The company was fined £230,000. And the reason it happened comes down to one thing that catches businesses out again and again: the arrangements changed, but the safety planning didn’t change with them. It’s a case every business that lifts, moves

How often do you still see someone on a roof, or up a ladder, with nothing to stop them falling? If you work in or around construction, the honest answer is: more often than anyone would like to admit. Despite decades of guidance, free advice and well-known rules, unsafe work at height is still happening

A worker was cleaning a production line that had been switched off. Partway through, it started up – and pulled her arm into a rotating roller, causing multiple fractures. Her employer was fined £333,333. It’s a case that turns on one of the most dangerous assumptions in any workplace with machinery: that a machine which

Ten days before a father and son were buried under a collapsing pile of scrap metal, the same machine had already given a warning. Its cab had swung into a member of the public’s vehicle. Nobody was hurt that time – so nothing changed. Ten days later, luck ran out. It’s a case that carries

Ask almost anyone running a small construction or trades business what their least favourite part of the job is, and paperwork will be near the top of the list. And within that pile, one item comes up again and again: RAMS. Risk assessments and method statements are essential, they’re expected on nearly every job, and

For a long time, stress was treated as something separate from “real” health and safety – a wellbeing issue, a soft subject, something that sat outside the hard world of guardrails and hard hats. That thinking is well out of date, and the HSE is making that clearer than ever. Work-related stress is a health

A recent HSE prosecution should give every principal contractor pause. An Oldham-based construction company was fined £30,000 after a 25-year-old bricklayer suffered serious injuries when the floor he was working on collapsed beneath him. He fell from height along with a number of concrete blocks, fracturing his right leg, his hip and his left hand.