The Sub-Committee received a verbal report
from the Service Manager (Health and Safety) on the following
health and safety updates:
1)
Newcastle City Council: Fined over a 6-year-olds death from a
falling tree. The young girl was hit by
a falling tree at Gosforth Park First School on 25 September 2020,
and subsequently died the following morning in hospital.
The tree had become an
“accident waiting to happen” after the council failed
to properly investigate its condition following an inspection in
February 2018 which identified the need for another detailed look
at it within six months.
Newcastle City Council
pleaded guilty on 10 January 2023 under Section 3(1) of the Health
and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and were fined £280,000 and
ordered to pay costs of £8,020.
2)
BUPA: On 8 January 2021 a girl was out for an evening jog with her
father. As she was running on a
pavement outside the entrance to the care home, a lime tree fell on
her. She suffered serious crush
injuries and her leg had to be amputated. It was subsequently found that the tree was
diseased with a common fungus and had likely been rotting for
several years prior to the accident.
Bupa Care Homes pleaded guilty to a
breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act
1974 and received a fine of £400,000. The company was also
ordered to pay costs of £3,275 and an undisclosed victim
surcharge.
3)
Stress: Absence from work resulting from stress
continues to be the highest cause of sickness absence and
increasingly employers were introducing or consolidating steps to
address both work related and non-work related stress.
Th
estimated number of workers in Great Britain suffering a
work-related illness was 1.8 million with stress, depression, and
anxiety making up around half of cases, new figures
showed.
The
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had published its annual
statistics on work-related ill health and workplace
injuries. The figures from Great
Britain’s workplace regulator showed there was an estimated
914,000 cases of work-related stress, depression, or anxiety in
2021/22.
An
estimated 17 million working days were lost due to work-related
stress, depression, or anxiety in 2021/22. This is over half of all
working days lost due to work-related ill health.
The
HSE Stress Working Group which will identify its priorities within
this work strand going forward.
The Sub-Committee considered
the lessons learnt and asked questions to which responses were
provided.
In particular detailed
discussions were held tree inspections, and whether the council was
confident that its own trees had been inspected and were
safe. The Sub-Committee was advised
that all trees owned by the council were inspected and logged on an
electronic system called Arbi-trace. Tree
inspections were generated, and any defects were recorded and put
into a scheduled of works.
In response to a question
raised about trees and parish councils, the Sub-Committee was
informed that the council’s tree officers worked with parish
councils but did not have ...
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