A few days ago it emerged that G4S Cash Solutions has been fined £1.8 million for failing to protect its workers from legionnaires' disease. Harlow Council took action in October 2013, following reports that a worker had contracted the serious lung infection which causes flu-like symptoms.

Town Hall's environmental health officers were unable to prove that the Harlow worker had contracted the disease through the site. However, searches uncovered that there was a serious lack of compliance in maintaining water systems at the workplace.

Harlow Council began prosecution proceedings and G4S pled guilty to two charges under the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act on June 20. At their sentencing the court judge fined the company and the company have told the court that they have taken a number of measures to improve the health and safety of their site. 

The bacterial infection Legionella is one of the main risks of contamination in engineering water systems. The most severe cases are from Legionnaires disease, which can lead to Pneumonia, and other secondary infections, which could lead to death. The infection flourishes in temperatures of between 25°C and 45°C, particularly, if an abundance of nutrients such as sludge, sediment or rust in the water systems and it affects a range of structures such as air condition systems, cooling towers, hot and cold water systems and many more. 

It is vitally important that an assessment should be undertaken to prevent and control the risk of a legionella outbreak. This can involve monitoring, inspecting, cleaning, disinfecting, flushing and sampling.

Label Source has supplied various labels to water system inspection companies and UKAS test laboratories to identify monitoring points, decontamination actions, safety procedures and inspection records. For further information on what custom printed labels, sign and tags we could offer you, contact us by email (sales@labelsource.co.uk) or by telephone(0800 3761693 in UK or +44 1443 842769 if you're outside the UK).

Whats been going on in the world of Health and Safety this week? 

Taylor Wimpey Provides education to primary school students 

In Banbury this week students from Woodford Halse CE primary academy learnt about how to keep safe near building sites.  A visit from health and safety consultants arranged by building company Taylor Wimpey saw the young pupils learn about the different hazards that are posed by building sites, including hazards like falling scaffolding, broken glass, falling bricks and sharp metal hidden around the site. Here at label source, be believe that the education of the potential hazards of building sites is essential for young children to ensure their safety near construction sites, and we hope to hear about more of these lessons   happening around the country. 

To read mor about Taylor Wimpeys visit click here.

Firm Fined £5000 after mobile platform failed

In North Lincolnshire an agricultural services firm has been fined following an incident where two workers fell three metres when a mobile work platform failed. The firm had been contracted to erect a steel frame building, work had just started on installing the steel roof beams when the accident happened.  The two men where attaching the steel beams from inside a man riding basket attached to a forklift truck when the basket attachment failed, due to the fact that the basket had not been secured correctly, and the basket along with the workers fell to the ground. Both men suffered broken bones and internal injuries from the fall.  The HSE later revealed in court that the equipment that was used was not the correct equipment for the job that they were conducting, the company had failed to provide the correct working at height equipment and how the work was not properly planned or properly supervised. The firm was fined £5000 and have to pay £10,147 in costs. The two workers have fully recovered and have since returned to work.

Click here to read more on this report.

Gate Safety Week 

From October 12 – 18 it is national gate safety week. This is a campaign that has been created by Door & Hardware Federation (DHF) Powered Gate Group with hope to improve the safety of powered gates here in the UK. 

In total 3 children and 3 adults have been killed from accidents involving powered gates. It has been reported that in the UK alone there are over 500,000 powered gates in use, however, shockingly only 30% of these gates are safe to use. 

The gate safety week campaign aims to educate the public and professional installers the dangers around poorly installed gates and how to identify and report unsafe gates.

Learn more about Gate Safety Week Here 

Wearable Technology saving lives

Site workers in Bristol are using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) which uses chips to pass information between transponders and receptors. This innovation alerts pedestrians and machine operators of each other presence by sending vibrating, audio and visual alerts when the pedestrian and a vehicle driver are in the ‘danger zone.’ Allowing the both the driver and the pedestrian to avoid an accident. This device also features a warning system, if a pedestrian does breach a danger zone a warning system logs the incident and records it, so site managers can identify workers who repeatedly breach the danger zone and offer safety training to avoid accident. 

Click here to read more about On Guard

You probably heard about the Queen's asbestos problems earlier this week (and if you didn't, go and read the blog we wrote about it). Here are some other health and safety stories that didn't get quite so much attention this week...

Stafford Borough Council were hit with a £20,000 fine (plus costs) on Wednesday after an HSE inspection found that "a suitable risk assessment had not been carried out" at a local theatre. The investigation was carried out after a 33-year-old worker was injured in a fall at Stafford Gatehouse Theatre and left unable to work for more than two months afterwards.

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A company in West Yorkshire has admitted to breaching health and safety regulations in relation to a fatal incident that occurred in late 2012. Keith Jarman, a 65-year-old man from Doncaster, was killed by a falling metal cage roughly two and a half years ago whilst making a deliver to an Oasis store in Hebden Bridge; the managing director of Oasis Limited entered a guilty plea on Wednesday, and the company will be sentenced in September.

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Car manufacturers Hyundai are under fire in America, with the United Auto Workers union petitioning for health and safety improvements in the company's factories. According to Buzzfeed, the workers are particularly concerned about "exposure to unsafe chemicals" - read the full story here.

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Finally, a couple of updates from Alton Towers, which is still reeling from the much-publicised Smiler crash earlier this month. The theme park has re-opened its gates since the accident, but visitors are complaining that too many attractions have been closed, with many suggesting that Alton Towers should lower their admission prices to reflect this.

According to the Express & Star, "Park-goers...have queued up for more than an hour for some attractions only to see them shut with no prior warning for safety testing." However, a representative for Alton Towers stated, "any delays that we are experiencing now are within our expected level."

Meanwhile, Joe Pugh - one of the people injured in the Smiler crash - was released from hospital on Tuesday; according to the Daily Star, Joe, his girlfriend Leah Washington (who had her leg amputated in the wake of the accident), and a third victim have all received payouts from the theme park's insurers.

More health and safety news and insight here.

Love it or hate it, health and safety is a hot topic here in Great Britain. New stories - some silly, some very serious - emerge every week, and it can be difficult to stay abreast of everything that's happening in the mad, mad world of H&S from one week to the next.

Fortunately, we at Label Source are more than happy to do the hard work for you. Here are 5 stories that you may have missed this week:
 

• Fire safety regulations made the news on Wednesday after a London resident stumbled upon a two-foot high emergency exit (pictured above). While the tiny fire escape is more or less unusable unless you're crawling on your belly, the London Evening Standard pointed out that "there are no rules about the minimum height of a fire exit" (although fire safety regulations do stipulate minimum widths). To be fair, the diminutive door is labelled with a Fire Escape - Keep Clear sign, so the proprietors have clearly put some thought into their building's fire safety.
  
   
• With economy airlines attempting to widen their profit margins by squeezing more and more passengers onto their planes, concerns have been raised about the safety of their increasingly cramped cabins. Experts have stated that a lack of space could make it difficult for passengers to escape the plane or receive medical treatment in an emergency situation.
  
  
  
• Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville has hit out at 'health and safety culture', which he believes is plaguing modern television production. "If someone is going to look into a mirror," he said, "you need to fill out a long risk assessment form about possible damage to their irises." Bonneville then pointed out that he was exaggerating, but did express his distaste for "acronyms, targets, hurdles, barriers and red tape", which he feels are an obstacle to "getting on with the job of making programmes".
  
  
  
• Sadly, we've yet another gruesome story to add to our machine safety blog post: The Health and Safety Executive this week shared the horrific report of a 19-year-old from Nottinghamshire whose forearm was severed in an assembly line accident in 2013. Mark Marshall was attempting to retrieve a glove from a conveyor belt when the accident happened; the firm he was working for at the time are now in court.
  
  
  
• Finally, a Nestlé factory in Burton has been hit with a health and safety improvement notice after HSE inspectors found a number of issues on the premises. One of the problems was "a lack of signage pointing towards emergency escape routes". Sounds like they need to visit our Fire Safety & Emergency Access department!

Photo from Vincento/Twitter.

Last month, we shared the amusing story of Hayward, a town in California that has installed a series of humorous traffic signs ("It's a speed limit, not a suggestion!") in an effort to improve road safety. Well, a village in Eastern France has gone one step further - motorists passing through Bretenières (approximate population: 40) are now being greeted by this slightly morbid notice:

Translation: "There are still children to run over. You can accelerate."

Unsurprisingly, this spectacularly sarcastic approach to road safety has caused its share of controversy. Many angry letters have been written, and this tiny village's outrageous road signs have made the news all over France. So what does Hervé Bruyère, Mayor of Bretenières, have to say in defence of his sardonic signage? Here's an excerpt from The Connexion's report about this story:

Bruyère, who was elected mayor in last year's local elections, said that the signs were a last resort after every other attempt to slow down speeding motorists on a perfectly straight section of road through the centre of the village had failed..."Motorists sometimes drive at between 70kph and 80kph. The village is quiet, but I have seen several near misses," he added.

In short, these signs are an attempt to tackle that same problem with which the city of Hayward was struggling: the standard road signs that we see every day have become 'white noise', and since people no longer take any notice of signs like these...

...local authorities are forced to resort to signs like these...

...to catch the public's eye. As gruesome as that French sign is, we can definitely understand the thinking behind it - you're more likely to pay attention to something funny that you've never seen before than a boring old safety symbol that you've seen thousands of times before!

That being said, standard road signs are still important. We made this point in the Hayward blog post, too, but it bears repeating: funny road signs are a fantastic idea, but they should be used in addition to the normal traffic signs, not instead of them. If you work for your local council and Mayor Bruyère has inspired you to try the sarcastic approach in your town, remember that humour alone is not enough!