Alistair Bromhead Ltd Warns on the Safe Use of Roll Cages in Light of Huge Retail Giant Fine

Press Release (ePRNews.com) - ASHTEAD, England - Mar 10, 2017 - An incident which happened at household goods retailer Wilko’s Leicester store left a 20-year old female worker with life changing injuries after a heavily laden cage full of paint fell on her whilst she was trying to manoeuvre it across an uneven floor.

Wilko admitted four breaches of health and safety legislation. It was found that employees at the store had not been given adequate training or supervision on the safe use of roll cages or the lifts they were expected to use. Suitable risk assessments had not been conducted, and the roll cage specific risk assessment did not cover the hazards involved in manuevouring them across uneven surfaces. In addition, no risk assessment had been conducted on the manual handling of roll cages and there had been no information provided to staff about how to safely distribute loads throughout the cage.

Leicester City Council Public Safety Team Manager Govind Mandora said, “All businesses need to take heed and learn from this tragic case by taking their health and safety responsibilities seriously. Simple steps like carrying out adequate risk assessments, proper training and supervision for staff, and properly maintained equipment will help prevent similar accidents happening again.”

According to the HSE, the movement and loading of roll cages leads to numerous injuries, most of which are related to manual handling. Whilst there are no comprehensive industry research findings available, some companies that use roll cages continuously have reported that up to a third of their accidents are related to the cages and that injuries typically result from pushing and pulling, particularly up slopes; trying to prevent the overbalancing of roll cages; repetitive loading and unloading; feet and hands becoming trapped and the cages themselves falling off lorries during loading and unloading.

Alistair Bromhead Ltd (http://www.abromhead.co.uk) is a national provider of training courses in manual handling and other areas of health and safety. Company leader and respected authority on health and safety Dr Alistair Bromhead feels strongly that businesses should be placing exceptional focus on preventing injuries amongst their workforces and says that with the right training and investment in usage-specific risk assessments, the chance of accidents and injuries could be easily reduced, not to mention how productivity and efficiency together with staff morale could be boosted.

“In light of what the HSE has said on the subject of roll cages and manual handling related injuries, employers should feel compelled to conduct usage-specific risk assessments and to ensure their workforce receives the very best training possible before they begin to use the cages. Training should be appropriate to the situation the roll cage operators face; i.e. it should not be general, but instead specifically designed to deal with the nature of the goods being transported and the surroundings too”, says Dr Bromhead.

Alistair Bromhead Ltd’s manual handler training course (http://www.abromhead.co.uk/manual-handler-training.asp) can be individually tailored to the specific needs of roll cage users. The course can be carried out onsite so that the trainees get to do their learning within the environment they are actually working in, with hands-on tuition in the safe use of the roll cage they will actually be using to carry out their duties. The training is practical and interactive and there is also a manual handling train the trainer course which allows organisations to invest in their own in-house trainers and therefore reduce costs whilst enhancing safety.

For more information or to book a course, call 0800 710 1099 or email info@abromhead.co.uk.