In a case brought by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) held at Telford Magistrates’ Court on 16 December, the court heard that, on 17 October 2018, a PCP employee sustained a degloving injury when his hand was dragged into the rollers of a printing press while he was attempting to clear a blockage.
The second incident took place on 18 January 2019, when another employee was dealing with a misaligned paper log on a palletising machine.
The clamping arm descended and crushed his hand, breaking his wrist.
An investigation by HSE found that, in both cases, “the risk assessments in place were not suitable and sufficient as they did not consider the risks of clearing blockages or dealing with misaligned paper logs”.
“As a consequence, the employees involved in the incidents had not been provided with safe systems of work, sufficient information, instruction or training for such tasks.”
PCP pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching Section 2(1) of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974. The company was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay costs of £8,547.60.
PCP told Printweek that the business had accepted responsibility and cooperated fully with HSE, and had implemented the recommended and additional control measures identified “immediately following these investigations, working to further improve the safe systems of work for all staff”.
“These activities, supported by ongoing continuous improvement initiatives has led to further significant improvements in safety management across the entire business, with safe systems of work being enhanced, and training further developed across all its presses, bindery, and ancillary machinery,” PCP stated.
“PCP is fully committed to ensuring the health, safety and welfare of all its employees, visitors, contractors, and other parties that may be affected by their activities. PCP provides information, instruction, training, and supervision to all employees to ensure they are competent to carry out duties safely. Every day the business acts to protect the welfare of employees and aims to be an industry leader by actively promoting health and safety throughout all its operations.”
PCP provides magazine and commercial printing services and runs web offset, sheetfed and comprehensive in-house finishing equipment. The firm had sales of £26.3m in the pandemic-impacted 2020 financial year.
