Outside view of RPC's transparent glass building.

Health and Safety Bulletin – March 2024

Published on 06 March 2024

Welcome to this month's health and safety update. View the headlines below or click the pdf at the bottom of the page to read the full articles.

Former trampoline park bosses prosecuted after 11 people broke their backs and 270 injured over a two-month period

David Shuttleworth and Matthew Melling were the former directors of a franchise of Flip Out in Chester where so many visitors were being injured at the park that doctors from the local hospital visited the site to understand why there had been a sudden influx of injuries. Some are considered to have been left with "life changing" spinal injuries and despite the injuries starting only a day after the park opened on 10 December 2016, the company did not appear to take any steps to improve the safety standards at the site.

A large proportion of customers were injured using the Tower Jump, which had a platform that was 17 feet high at the highest point, with customers jumping into a foam pit below. Despite landing in line with the way they were advised to by the site, a significant number of customers sustained injuries. 

From the day of opening until 3 February 2017, 270 people using the Tower Jump sustained injuries, with 11 spinal injuries (four of which required surgery), and 123 injured by face-to knee contact with customers also sustaining other injuries including broken ribs. Staff from the Countess of Chester Hospital wrote to the site after three people sustained back injuries in one day with a group senior doctor visiting the site two days later. 

The Court heard that the directors took a cavalier approach to safety and despite the incident numbers at the site, they took the attitude that the injuries "came with the territory" rather than forming a basis for them to take any action to improve safety. However, the Court accepted that there was no suggestion the Defendants were seeking to put profit before safety.

David Shuttleworth was fined £6,500 and ordered to pay costs of £50,000 whilst Matthew Melling was ordered to pay £6,300 with £10,000 in costs. The pair were also handed a Community Order involving 250 hours of community service. The prosecution and investigation costs totalled £250,000. 

Obstruction of a HSE investigation leads to company and director fines

The HSE carried out a site inspection and identified a number of health and safety failings at a timber-framed development site in Stoke-on-Trent. The construction company were Amro Construction Ltd. The most serious failings identified by the HSE were in respect of fire safety. The company was found to have not adequately considered the fact that the construction was of a timber-frame project, in a highly residential area, and had also not adequately assessed the fire risks both on and off-site. This included a failure to effect measures that would prevent the occurrence of a fire, or the spreading of any fire, which in turn placed both members of the public and the workers, at risk. Moreover, the HSE confirmed there was an open flame gas stove 'amongst large volumes of combustible material' as well as 'poor site security'. The HSE confirmed the company had already received advice and enforcement in respect of fire safety and inadequate washing facilities. 

During the course of the investigation, the HSE stated the Managing Director of the company, David Taylor, refused to provide requested information and that this refusal was deliberate, causing a delay to the investigation. 

Mr Taylor was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,935 for breaching Section 33(1)(H) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.  Additionally, the company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £20,000, with a costs order of £1,587. 

The HSE stated that, "this type of proactive prosecution should highlight to the construction industry that HSE will not hesitate to prosecute companies for repeated breaches of the law, and that directors will also be prosecuted where they intentionally obstruct our inspectors".

Stunt man's injuries result in £800,000 fine for filming company

FF9 Pictures Limited, a production company behind the filming of Fast and Furious 9: The Saga, was fined following an accident at the Warner Brothers' studio in Leavesden in which a stuntman suffered permanent impairment and disability as a result. Joe Watts was performing a stunt when the line on his vest detached, resulting in him falling 25 feet onto a concrete floor and suffering significant, life-changing injuries. 

During its investigation, the HSE noted multiple failings which had led to the accident, including a failure to implement mitigation measures such as extending the crash mat in case of an accidental fall, a failure to carry out requisite safety inspections of the harnesses used and checking the links for signs of deformation and/or stretching. Furthermore, the risk assessment carried out by the company did not identify or address the potential issue of a 'rope snap' or 'link failure', nor implement any systems for checking the link was properly engaged. 

The HSE highlighted the importance of risks assessments in stunt work and stated, "in stunt work, it is not about preventing a fall but minimising the risk of an injury".  FF9 Pictures Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £800,000, as well as being ordered to pay £14,752.85 in costs.

Funfair company fined and Operations Manager jailed following the death of 3-year-old girl

In July 2018, Ava-May Littleboy, visited 'Bounce About', a beach funfair in Norfolk which was run by Johnsons Funfair Limited. 

There were a number of inflatables operated by the company, including bouncy castles and slides. An inflatable trampoline exploded and threw Ava-May approximately 20 feet in the air. Tragically she then landed on the beach, suffering a fatal head injury. Another little girl, who was also on the trampoline at the same time, was also injured. 

The HSE identified that the trampoline had been imported from China in and that none of the requisite testing and certification required in the UK had been carried out. This meant that the trampoline was being used without certainty that it would be safe for the public. In addition, the HSE found that the company had been using undertrained staff which were being paid cash in hand, and who were too young to work. They had also been working without child work permits with the HSE having stated that even if the requisite permits had been sought, they would not have been granted in those circumstances. 

When products are imported, the operating instructions should be sought from the manufacturer and annual checks need to be undertaken and certified by "an independent expert under the ADIPS scheme (a scheme for checks comparable to MOT checks for vehicles)". None of those measures had been carried out. These failures led to the company being prosecuted in the capacity of an importer of fairground equipment for breach of section 6 (1A) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

The HSE fined the company £20,000 for breaching both Sections 6(1A) (a) and 3(1) Health and Safety at Work etc, and it was also ordered to pay £288,475.62 in costs. Curt Johnson, the operations Manager of Johnsons Funfair Limited "pleaded guilty to offences of having consented to or connived in each of the company's two offences, or those being attributable to his neglect". The sentence given was 6 months for each offence, served concurrently.  Mr Johnson was also disqualified as a director for 5 years.  

The HSE has guidance on health and safety at fairgrounds that can be found here. This guidance was updated following this tragic incident specific to sealed inflatables here.  

HSE tip off leads to £100,000 fine

A member of the public recorded a video and made a report to the HSE after workers were seen carrying out dangerous practices whilst working at height, in July 2022. The workers were employed by European Active Projects (EAP Limited) of Chatham Docks, Kent.  

The video footage showed a worker standing on a pallet that was on a forklift truck whilst attempting to remove some equipment from the deck of a boat. The boat was situated in Ramsgate Harbour and the scaffolding that had previously been used to carry out repair works and provide safe access had been removed. The pressure washer had been left on the deck and was in the process of being removed using the pallet/forklift method so the workers could reach the required height of the deck to retrieve it. One of the workers then climbed under the guardrail of the boat to access it. 

EAP Limited was fined £100,000 and ordered to pay £5,730.40 in costs. In addition, the company was found to have failed to plan the works that were required to take place at height during the refurbishment/repair to the deck of the boat: the workers had not been given a safe method for removing the equipment that was on the deck and the risks had not been identified or managed appropriately. HSE inspector Samuel Brown said that the level of the fine reflected the fact the company had been the subject of a previous prosecution; "This incident demonstrates why there is a need to appropriately plan and supervise work at height. Clearly, lessons had not been learnt since the company’s previous prosecution in 2015".

The HSE confirmed that the biggest cause of fatal accidents for workers is still a fall from height and has helpful guidance for those working at height here.

Two deaths lead to £3 million fine for waste management company

Two separate incidents involving the deaths of two workers resulted in Valencia Waste Management Limited (formerly known as Viridor Waste Management Limited), being fined £3 million. 

The first incident took place on 10 October 2019, when an employee was using a forklift to load wastepaper bales onto a lorry. Whilst he was loading a fourth row of wastepaper bales, some of the bales in the third row fell off the lorry and crushed a fellow co-worker, Michael Atkin, who had been attempting to secure the bales, causing him to sustain fatal injuries.  

The HSE investigation determined that whilst there were policies in place at Valencia Waste Management Limited's site for the loading of bales onto lorries, which included a requirement to make sure bales were not being loaded at the same time as anyone who is securing bales on the lorry, those practices were not being followed at the time of the accident. 

The second incident took place at the Dartmoor National Park Conservation Works depot in Devon, on 17 January 2020 and involved an agency worker on his second week with the company. Mark Wheatley, who was living in Teignbridge, Devon, was using a method called 'hot swapping' to lift two skips at the same time using a lorry. Unfortunately, due to the incompatibility of the skips (given their different sizes), the skips overbalanced and crushed him.  

The HSE investigation found that the company had not carried out adequate risk assessments on the various operations involving skips and therefore safe systems of work were not in place. Furthermore, the sizes of the skips had not been displayed on the skips themselves. 

The company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in both incidents and was fined £1 million for the first incident and £2 million for the second. The company was also ordered to pay costs in respect of both incidents for the combined amount of £21,054.

£2.15 million fine for death of agency worker at recycling site

Mr Atkinson, an agency worker at Ward Recycling (which went into liquidation in 2021), was walking through a traffic area at the recycling centre where two loading shovels were being operated. He had been returning from the welfare cabins situated on site to his workstation on the picking line when he was hit by one of the loading shovels, which fatally wounded him. 

The HSE's investigation identified a number of failings by the company, which included lack of adequate measures for managing traffic on the site. These failures meant there was a risk of moving vehicles (including the loading shovels) injuring pedestrians. The HSE confirmed that, "a visibility assessment found that an area of over 10 metres in front of the vehicles could be obscured from the drivers view". This should have been taken into account when implementing safety measures to the workplace. 

The company was found guilty of breaching Section 1 of the Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 and given a fine of £1.75 million, and guilty of breaching health and safety regulations, with a further fine of £400,000.

The HSE confirmed the accident was entirely preventable had adequate safety control measures been put in place and that, "following the incident, it took the company less than a week to put in place an alternative traffic route to protect pedestrians", further emphasising the ease at which important safety controls could have been put in place.

Fine and suspended prison sentence following injury by electric shock

A scaffolder who struck a live 11,000-volt power line while carrying a six-metre scaffold tube suffered lifechanging electrical burns to both hands and then fell over 5 metres to the ground, suffering a badly broken leg. Mr Gilmore is not expected to ever regain full use of his hands. 

The incident took place while Mr Gilmore was working for contractor Canterbury City Scaffolding Limited (CCSL) to erect a temporary roof scaffold at an open-air drinks venue in Crawley, West Sussex. CCSL and its director, Ian Pepper, were prosecuted after the HSE found that they had failed to ensure the high-risk job was properly investigated or risk assessed. Working around overhead powerlines is always a high-risk endeavour with fatal consequences, and work requires both careful planning and execution to reduce the risks as far as possible. In this case, CCSL and its director had failed to contact UK

Power Networks, the network operator, to establish line voltage and safe clearance distances. 

The company pleaded guilty to breaching s2(1) Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which imposes a duty on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety, and welfare at work of all employees. It was the fined £50,000. Mr Pepper was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to take 200 hours of community service and 20 rehabilitation activity requirement days. 

The HSE's guidance note (GS6) on 'Avoiding danger from overhead power lines' can be found here.

Death following cow attack leads to £72,500 fine, seven years later

A family was attacked by cows being herded by a farming business on 3 April 2016 whilst they were walking on a bridlepath in Belford. The family had been staying at a cottage on the business' farm and whilst most of the family were able to escape the attack, a grandmother, who was at the front of the group, was attacked by the lead cow of the herd, and tragically died from her injuries 3 days later. 

The bridlepath along which the cows were being herded was a popular route and the cows were also being moved in the Easter holidays. The farmers who were moving the cows were at the rear of the herd, so did not realise there was an oncoming family when the attack took place.  
The HSE investigation found that no safety precautions or measures had been put in place which could have warned the family and/or members of the public that the cows were being moved. 

The farming company, J M Nixon & Son, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £72,500 and ordered to pay £34,700 in costs. HSE confirmed that cattle with calves should not be sited in a field where the public have a right of way to walk. 

The HSE has guidance for farmers, landowners, and other livestock keepers here.

Chicken delivery fraud ruffles feathers

Three individuals were sentenced in February 2024 for conspiring to steal £318,000 worth of chicken. 

Two workers, Darren Williams, and Elliot Smith had arranged 84 secret deliveries of chicken from the now-closed Anglesey branch of British poultry retailer '2 Sisters Food Group' to the now-defunct Coventry company, 'Townsend Poultry'. The chicken had not been paid for by the owner of Townsend Poultry, Rana Dhalia. Mr Williams and Mr Smith destroyed records of the illicit deliveries, forging handwritten dispatch notes to cover their tracks. The fraud was discovered by auditors, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA).  Although Townsend Poultry was not a registered customer of 2 Sisters, the investigators made enquiries with local hauliers and discovered evidence of the deliveries.  

Mr Williams and Mr Smith both pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position and each received a 2-year suspended sentence on 2 February 2024.  Meanwhile, Mr Dhalia pleaded not guilty to the charge of acquiring criminal property but was convicted by a jury in October 2023. He was sentenced to four years and three months imprisonment.

Dulwich classroom ceiling collapse results in £80,000 fine for school

An educational trust of a school in Dulwich was fined after fifteen children and a teacher were injured in one of the classrooms, following a ceiling collapse on 15 November 2021. 

The HSE carried out an inspection and determined that Thurlow Educational Trust had been storing various items in the roof space of Rosemead Preparatory School which ultimately led to its collapse. The items stored included chairs and desks. 

The HSE confirmed the school had failed to carry out the requisite risk assessments in respect of storing items in the roof space, including the failure to determine whether it was load-bearing and adequate to hold the weight of the furniture. 

The trust pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) and Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £80,000 with a costs order of £7,116.31. 

The HSE stated "Schools should be a place where children can come to learn from teachers and one another without having to worry about their safety…Fortunately, this incident did not cause any more serious injuries, but the mental and emotional impact of such an event should not be understated".

Worker unconscious in manhole leads to £480,000 fine for NHS Trust

At Kettering General Hospital Foundation Trust, an employee was carrying work in a confined space unblocking a drain when he suffered acute sulphate intoxication and became unconscious. He was subsequently discovered in the manhole by other members of staff and was rescued by Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service. Sadly, the employee "suffered a traumatic brain injury and ongoing issues with memory loss and nerve damage" as a result.

The HSE identified a lack of adequate risk assessments as well as a failure to identify the manhole as a confined space or prevent employees from accessing the area. In order to adequately protect its employees, the hospital should have implemented a safe system of work for clearing blocked drains, together with the risk assessment and measures put in place to manage the risks involved.  The hospital was fined £480,000 after pleading guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was ordered to pay £4,286.15 in costs. 

The HSE has guidance on working in confined spaces and highlights the importance of implementing proper training on the risks involved in undertaking such tasks.

Garden landscaper receives suspended prison sentence after death of employee

A 31-year-old labourer who had been working for a Watford-based landscape gardener for just two days was fatally injured when an angle grinder fitted with a toothed circular saw blade kicked back at him whilst he was using it to cut wooden sleepers. One of the sleepers was hanging out of a skip whilst being cut and was not being held down or secured. Further, the safety guard had been removed from the angle grinder as the circular saw blade fitted was larger than the original grinder disc on the power tool. The HSE considered that a dangerous machine had been created when the abrasive wheel of the angle grinder had been changed to a circular saw blade. 

Fernando Araujo pled guilty to breaching Regulation 4(3) of Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and Section 33(1)(C) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.  The former requires employers to ensure that work equipment is used only for operations for which, and under conditions for which, it is suitable; the latter makes it an offence to contravene health and safety regulations. 

Mr Araujo was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service and pay £3,467.72 in costs on 9 January 2024. 

Environmental

Polluters always pay

Companies who pollute the environment were previously held accountable by way of monetary fines from the Environment Agency (EA). However, following a consultation in Spring 2023, the UK Government made changes to a previous £250,000 cap on Variable Monetary Fines (VMPs) and expanded the range of offences they cover to include: 

  • Breach of permit conditions from sites that discharge into rivers and seas - for example, from sewage treatment works and permitted storm overflows.
  • Illegal discharges to water where there is no permit, such as in the event of agricultural pollution from slurry stores.
  • Illegal waste offences, such as from illegal scrapyards or unpermitted waste management facilities.
  • Permit breaches from manufacturing industries and power stations which contribute to air pollution.

Since 11 December 2023, polluters may face limitless fines (dependent on the size of the organisation and type of offence). Those affected include holders of environmental permits (including water and waste companies), agricultural companies, and those undertaking process work.

The Environment Secretary Steve Barclay said: "Through the launch of the Water Restoration Fund, the money raised from penalties imposed on water companies will go towards restoring and protecting our waters. This is part of the increased investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement we are delivering through our Plan for Water."

Other action recently taken by the UK Government to help protect the environment include giving Ofwat (the Water Services Regulation Authority) increased powers to ensure water company dividends and bonus payments are linked to environmental conduct.

Harrogate watercourse pollution led to £1m fine for Yorkshire Water

Yorkshire Water was held accountable for violating its environmental permit following an unauthorised sewage discharge into Hookstone Beck, Harrogate. As a result, it is voluntarily paying £1m to charities Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust, making it the highest sum accepted by the Environment Agency by way of an enforcement undertaking in recognition of wrongdoing. As part of the enforcement, Yorkshire Water has also substantially improved its sewer network with £1.85m of investment.        

The type of permit held by the water company allowed for discharge into Hookstone Beck, but only when the sewage facility was full as a result of the amount of rain or snow.  A report was made to the Environment Agency on 31 August 2016 after Yorkshire Water's monitoring equipment had failed to alert them as to a blockage in the sewage facility. The discharge was found to have killed 1,500 fish and disrupted the make-up of the water for 2.5km downstream. More blockages and discharges followed in the months following the initial one. 

The Environment Agency used instruments called "sondes", which transmit information about its surroundings (including ammonia levels). An assessment of Event Monitoring Data showed Yorkshire Water's contravention with its permit.

Both the Environment Agency Area Environment Manager in Yorkshire, Claire Barrow, and Water Minister, Robbie Moore, referred to investing the sums paid to the charities back into the local area. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust will fund better habitats for wildlife and Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust is using the contribution to improve River Nidd in partnership with Dales to Vales Rivers Network.  

Prison terms and director bans for Winters brothers who unlawfully disposed of rubbish

Two brothers from Warwickshire, 44-year-old Liam and 49-year-old Mark Winters, were prosecuted by the Environment Agency after an investigation found that they had unlawfully disposed of rubbish for almost three years leading to a 17-month term of imprisonment for former teacher Liam, and a term of 12 months, suspended for two years, for Mark. The brothers were also banned from acting as company directors for eight years. This followed an investigation by the agency regarding violations of their permit between January 2015 and November 2017 at a quarry the brothers ran at Codicote, Hemel Hempstead. 

The brothers had a permit to "treat and store" a small amount of soil waste but not hold it in large quantities. The material was found to be made up of household and business waste, including electrical items and food packaging. It was reportedly 200,000 cubic metres (enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool 80 times) of potentially harmful material. Hertfordshire County Council visited the quarry with the aim of getting the operators to comply with the law, but the brothers continued to dump and even bury rubbish under layers of chalk. Their permit was withdrawn by November 2017, and they were given two notices to remove the rubbish, but these were ignored.  

In order to lower the risk of pollution into the surrounding River Mimram and groundwater, the quarry will be monitored for years.  The manager for the Environment Agency in Hertfordshire hopes the prison terms will prevent others from flouting the law when it comes to waste sites. 
Liam Winters' penalty was more severe following a finding that he was illegally dumping rubbish at a further two locations with 44-year-old Nicholas Bramwell from Royston. Mark Winters was also handed 200 hours of unpaid work. A costs award or confiscation order against the brothers, and their company, Codicote Quarry Ltd may follow in the future.

Cheesemaker fined £20,000 for third pollution offence

The Environment Agency took cheesemakers Alvis Brothers Limited of Lye Cross Farm Cheeses based in Redhill, Bristol, to court. The company is well known in the area and supplies to big supermarkets chains including Waitrose, Ocado and Asda. It also sells to over 40 countries.  

Reports had been made to the Environmental Agency of the water at Congresbury Yeo, downstream of Lye Cross, being whitish in colour and in September 2020, officers found milky water. A pipe was found to be blocked by plastic (including gloves) at Lye Cross. There was no warning system in place so was seemingly undetected. However, this could be visibly appreciated and was not reported to the agency.

This was not the company's first offence, with others dating back to 2013 and 2019. District Judge Matthews, of Bristol Magistrates' Court, said the company had not self-reported in the hope of getting away with it. The fine awarded was £20,000 with costs of £3,520.20 and a victim surcharge of £190 for causing "discharge…of poisonous, noxious or polluting matter". Lye Cross Farm Cheeses had reduced the effect of the overflow in the water, but the Environment Agency rejected their offer to pay an Environmental Undertaking sum in lieu of a criminal conviction due to past breaches.

Round up

Work-related ill health and injury statistic 2022/2023

The HSE has published its statistics on annual work-related ill health and injury statistics for 2022/2023. This has led to further guidance and tools introduced to try to prevent and manage workplace related illness, which we explore further below. 

The HSE has found that the most common workplace related illnesses are stress, depression, and anxiety, which account for approximately half of the figures presented. In light of the pandemic, these figures may not come as a surprise to most people. In total, the HSE estimates that the number of working days lost to work-related stress, anxiety, or depression for 2022-2023 is as high as 17.1million. 

The HSE's report outlines that the cost of injuries and ill-health caused by current working conditions is £20.7 billion. In addition, the HSE confirmed that there were 135 workers killed in work related accidents during that period. 2,268 deaths were caused by mesothelioma as a result of past asbestos exposure. HSE’s chief executive Sarah Albon said: “Preventing or tackling work-related stress can provide significant benefits to employees, improving their experience of work and their overall health; and also to employers including increased productivity, decreased absenteeism and reduced staff turnover.

The HSE report also includes comparison data with some European countries as well as the EU-27 average. The report concludes that the UK consistently has one of the lowest rates of fatal injury across Europe, and that the percentage data relating to the UK rates of workplace non-fatal injuries and work-related ill health resulting in time off "compared favourably" with many of the EU countries cited.

HSE Online tool to address work-related stress

Given the above statistics reported by the HSE on work-related ill health, the HSE's Working Minds campaign designed a new online tool to help prevent work-related stress. The tool itself is interactive and consists of six modules designed to promote good mental health in the workplace. The modules are all based on situations that can arise in the workplace, including the factors that can indicate work related stress, e.g., being late to work and high staff turnover. The course is designed to take under an hour to complete.   

It is a legal requirement for businesses, no matter their size, to undertake the requisite risks assessments and to action any findings. The HSE has designed this resource to try to assist businesses in meeting those obligations, as well as preventing workers insofar as possible, from suffering from work-related stress. The HSE stated "More than half of small and medium sized (SME) businesses recently visited by HSE knew they had a legal duty to assess the risk of work-related stress, but the number who actually did this was significantly lower. This new online tool will help employers understand the steps and actions necessary to help bridge this gap. It is a much-needed solution".  The HSE also reiterated that the hurdles some businesses face when trying to combat and prevent work-related stress related to money, capacity, and know-how. The tool is free to use, provides the know-how and is designed not to take much time to complete. 

The online tool was launched on 8 November 2023 and can be found here. Further information on the HSE's Working Minds campaign can be found here

Asbestos campaign seeks to keep people safe from future dangers 

On 15 January 2024 the HSE launched its campaign aimed at educating those with duties to manage the risks associated with asbestos with the hope that people will be safe from the future danger it poses. The campaign has the title "Asbestos: Your Duty" and is directed at "anyone with responsibilities for buildings", which includes buildings such as museums, hospitals, places of worship, schools, workplaces, factories, and offices. 

The HSE's website includes all the information needed to understand whether a duty is owed, what that duty is, and what action should be taken to manage that duty. It also includes guidance on how to write an asbestos management plan, as well as monitor it and what risk assessments need to be carried out. The HSE has provided a comprehensive guide for duty holders which also includes templates, examples, and training videos. 

The HSE confirmed that asbestos exposure in Great Britain is still the single greatest cause of work-related deaths due to exposures decades ago, and that we must work together to protect people in the workplace and reduce future work-related ill health. 

For more information on the campaign and managing asbestos in buildings, you can see HSE guidance here.