A Preston egg production company and a joinery sub-contractor were today fined after a worker fell through a roof.

Preston Magistrates’ Court heard how an employee of T& J Leigh had been helping the joinery contractor Harry Jackson to re-roof an old feed mill building when he fell five metres through a gap, to the concrete floor below causing serious head and arm injuries.

The HSE investigation into the incident, which took place at Ghyll View Farm in Longton on 1 November 2016 found the roof work was not properly planned with no measures in place to prevent or mitigate a fall through or from the roof.

T & J Leigh (a partnership) of Ghyll View Farm pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc act 1974 and has been fined a total of £50000 with costs of £2855.32.

Harry Jackson of Much Hoole pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3 (2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc act 1974 and was given a 16 week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months. He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid work and pay costs of £2855.32.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Steven Boyd said: “This avoidable incident resulted in serious injuries, a fall from this distance could easily have been fatal.

“Roof work should always be properly planned with measures put in place to prevent a dangerous fall.

“Companies commissioning roof work should make reasonable checks regarding the competence of a contractor to undertake work at height safely”

 

Notes to Editors:

1. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. We prevent work-related death, injury and ill health through regulatory actions that range from influencing behaviours across whole industry sectors through to targeted interventions on individual businesses. These activities are supported by globally recognised scientific expertise. hse.gov.uk
2. More about the legislation referred to in this case can be found at: legislation.gov.uk/
3. HSE news releases are available at http://press.hse.gov.uk

I couldn’t have been prouder of Lynne Featherstone and the Liberal Democrats in government when we changed the law in England, bringing in equal marriage.

It is, without doubt, one of the best things our party did in government.

     Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan, at the Legislative Council Complex after the passing of the Medical Registration (Amendment) Bill 2017 today (March 28):

Reporter: (about the passing of the Medical Registration (Amendment) Bill 2017)

Secretary for Food and Health: First of all, I would like to thank everybody who have participated in getting the law passed – the legislators, patients, families and doctors’ associations – in working together to reach this consensus. Now that the legislation was passed, we have a number of follow-up work. First of all, with the increased number of lay members (of the Medical Council of Hong Kong), we are going to have negative vetting legislation tabled to the Legislative Council, so that we can lay out all the guidelines and the legislation related to the election of representatives from patients rights organisations. Secondly, on doctors with limited registration, we have increased the number of years of registration from not more than one year to not more than three years. With this increase, we hope to increase the flexibility of our public health system. The Hospital Authority, the Department of Health, and the two medical schools in Hong Kong can provide further incentives to hire overseas trained doctors to come back to Hong Kong to work, so that the situation of doctor shortage can be relieved. Finally, we also have to improve the patient’s complaint system to increase its efficiency and effectiveness. The Medical Council of Hong Kong would have to forge ahead with the work in terms of improving the existing mechanism. The Government would also provide additional resources to assist with the administration to forge ahead with this kind of work. Finally, I would like to thank everybody who have participated in getting this legislation passed. I think it is really a very important step forward to improve the relationship between doctors and patients so that we – the Government, doctors, patients and patients right associations – can work together to improve the health of the people in Hong Kong.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)