Hospital trust fined over asbestos dust failings
City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust has been fined relation to failings which saw contractors exposed to asbestos dust.
A North East hospital trust may be wishing it had used the correct dust monitoring equipment and procedures after it was punished for exposing workers to asbestos fibres.
City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay £4,582.40 in costs in relation to the incident at Sunderland Eye Infirmary.
Sunderland Magistrates' Court enforced the fine after hearing that contractors at the Queen Alexandra Road site were expose to the deadly fibres when drilling through door surrounds on a ward to install cables in March last year.
A member of staff voice concerns the following day and it was discovered that the surrounds were indeed made of asbestos insulating board - meaning the contractors had unwittingly disturbed the material.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) revealed that the trust had previously carried out an asbestos survey which clearly stated the door surrounds contained the fibres, but that no information was passed on to the contractors.
HSE inspector Shuna Rank explained that this was a preventable incident that shows the importance of having a "robust asbestos management system in place".
She said: "City Hospitals Sunderland had put considerable resources into identifying where asbestos was in the hospital buildings but failed to have efficient procedures in place to ensure the information was passed to the contractors.
"As a result workers drilled through the asbestos-containing material, potentially exposing themselves, hospital staff and members of the public to dangerous fibres."
It is important to identify asbestos as soon as possible. Frontline Safety have a range of dust and monitoring equipment from Casella and TSI available on the website.
The news comes shortly after it was revealed that Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust was fined for safety failings after employees were exposed to a potentially deadly strain of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis bacteria.
Posted by Shona Innes
