Owners did not carry out adequate maintenance or regular Thorough Examinations.

The owners of a fencing company in Bristol have been fined £35,000 following a successful prosecution by the HSE. The case, which involved a telehandler, resulted from the death of an employee.

The HSE identified serious failures on the part of the company’s management stating: “This incident could so easily have been avoided by simply ensuring that the vehicle in question had been properly maintained and thoroughly examined.”

In the incident a telehandler was being used to move a load when it tipped over and knocked stacked timber onto an employee causing fatal crush injuries. The resulting HSE investigation found that the telehandler’s safety device, designed to stop loads being lifted to unsafe heights, was faulty and had not worked for a considerable time. Neither the fencing company nor the site owner had ensured that the truck received regular Thorough Examinations or adequate maintenance – each of which would have highlighted the problem.

Two distinct requirements

“This is a tragic example of an employer either being unaware of, or simply failing to meet their responsibilities with regard to the safe operation of their materials handling equipment and the wellbeing of their workforce,” said Geoff Martin, Chairman of CFTS, the industry’s accrediting body for the provision of Thorough Examinations.

Equipment owner responsibilities embrace two key areas:

1. Ensuring the equipment is regularly serviced in line with manufacturers’ guidelines 

 and

2. Ensuring that it undergoes a Thorough Examination (meeting the requirements of both LOLER and PUWER)

“It’s important that owners and operators of equipment understand that the two are entirely separate,” insisted Mr Martin. “A service is not a Thorough Examination, just as a car’s service is quite different from an MOT. One is maintenance, the other a mandatory inspection. As can be seen in this and far too many similar cases, skipping either can have deadly and profound consequences.

“When it comes to materials handling equipment, the frequency of a Thorough Examination is different from that of a car’s MOT in that the first examination is required at the end of the first year in service (rather than 3 years in the case of a car). What’s more, because of the complexity of the equipment and the potential threat it poses, examinations may need to be carried out more frequently than every 12 months, depending on the application.