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Asbestos UK Surveyors for NIACS

The National Individual Asbestos Certification Scheme (NIACS) a joint venture between the Asbestos Removal Contractors Association (ARCA) and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is the first and only UKAS accredited mechanism for individual asbestos inspectors launched in a bid to provide quality assurance to clients in line with the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002.

Our surveyors are booked on the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health Level 3 Certificate courses which have been fully approved by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) as fulfilling the minimum requirements of RG8 for accreditation. This means that the BOHS P402 and BOHS S301 Certificates are no longer the only option for Asbestos UK surveyors carrying out asbestos surveys.

Company and director fined for forging asbestos safety checks

The Wigan Observer has reported that a company endorsed by the HSE has been fined £15,000 for stripping out potentially deadly asbestos from a building without running safety checks.

The judge branded Christopher Jarnell, the director of TW Insulation, as "disgraceful" for forging a document suggesting everything had been done by the book.

District Judge Richard Clancy he would have ended up with a prison sentence if the matter had been dealt with in a higher court told Jarnell, who was ordered to pay a £3,000 fine and £2,000 costs.

The hearing, at Liverpool Magistrates Court, was told that TW Insulation was one of a number of companies licensed by the HSE to carry out asbestos removal. The executive ended up having to prosecute the firm when procedural failings and fraud came to light, which could have endangered the lives of innocent parties.

Five years ago, the firm was called in by the landlords of Graeme House in Liverpool to remove asbestos during the renovation of lower floors. At the time civil servants occupied the upper floors.

The work was carried out but TW Insulation should then have brought in an expert to carry out an asbestos survey to check there were no particles floating dangerously in the air. No survey was carried out but Jarnell produced a bogus air test certificate, which suggested that there were no risks.

By the time the short-cut and forgery were discovered, it was too late to know if anything had been left airborne.

The firm admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act "by failing to conduct its undertaking as asbestos removal contracts in such a way as to ensure so far as was reasonably practicable that persons not in its employment were not exposed to risk to their health by the company's failure to prepare an adequate asbestos survey report".

On top of the £15,000 fine, it was ordered to pay £10,000 court costs.

Jarnell also admitted breaching the act by not taking "reasonable care for the health and safety of others who might be affected by his act or omissions at work in that he promulgated a forged air test certificate with the intention that people would rely on it."

After the hearing, HSE principal inspector Wayne Crumpton said:

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'I didn't know it was dangerous'

The UK and many other developed countries are on the verge of an asbestos disease epidemic, say doctors writing in the British Medical Journal. Mike Wise is a typical example.

Thirty-two years ago a 16-year-old carpenter's apprentice left the building industry to go to university.

Last Friday he was told he is dying. Mike Wise, now 47, was told no further treatment could halt the spread of the "out of control" cancer in his lungs.

He contracted mesothelioma from cutting asbestos sheets for fire doors in his short time as an apprentice in 1972.

Mr Wise says his employer did not make him aware of the dangers of the substance - in spite of regulations introduced in the 1960s.

"It is the only time I ever worked in the building industry," he told BBC News.
"After that I went to university and did other things.

But in the first year of my apprenticeship the company got a contract to make hundreds of fire doors.

"And as a result we were cutting asbestos sheets in the workshop.

"Clouds of asbestos dust were coming off the electric saw and everybody in the workshop got exposed to the dust.

"This was 1972 so by then it was known asbestos was dangerous.

"But it was not as widely accepted as it is nowadays.

"And as a naive 16-year-old I did not know it was dangerous."

Twenty-nine years later Mr Wise, who lives in Hull with his wife, Christine, began waking up in the night covered in sweat and started losing weight.

His GP attributed the symptoms to a thyroid problem and only suspected there may be something wrong with his lungs after Mr Wise had been suffering for more than a year.
"It was quite amusing really," Mr Wise told BBC News.

"I went to the hospital for an X-ray, got taken down to accident and emergency and was seen within two minutes - which was a bit of a give-away."

Since then Mr Wise has had three lots of chemotherapy and the latest drug treatments available.

But on Friday the doctors told him the cancer was still spreading and there was nothing more they could do.

"I am not sure what is going to happen in the next few months," Mr Wise told BBC News.
"But I am philosophical about the whole thing.

"I am very happily married - Christine is an absolute rock and she helps me through my day-to-day existence.

What does concern me though is there is very very little medical research actually happening in the field of mesothelioma at the moment."

After a lengthy legal battle Mr Wise won several hundred thousand pounds in compensation.
And he is calling on the insurance company that made the pay-out to push the industry and the government into working together to fund medical research into mesothelioma.

"Insurance companies have a huge liability in this area," Mr Wise told BBC News.

"They have a vested interest in working with the government to fund medical research in order to mitigate that liability - because if you stop people dying the problem simply goes away."

Unfortunately, though, as Mr Wise accepts, for him it may already be too late.

news.co.uk

Palace widow gets asbestos payout

The widow of a man who died after exposure to asbestos at Buckingham Palace has been awarded nearly £180,000 in compensation by the High Court.

Mary Costello's husband John died aged 58 in September 2001 of mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer.

He had worked as a maintenance worker at the palace from 1970 to 1992.
Lawyers for Mrs Costello said a breach of duty of care has been admitted by the Crown's solicitors. On Wednesday the High Court awarded her £177,901.

Mrs Costello, 59, was seeking compensation to cover the cost of her husband's care and loss of earnings as she had to give up work as a child minder to care for him at home.
"John loved his job but we never realised that it would eventually kill him," she said .
Her husband's job included repairing boilers in the palace.

"He would have to remove the old asbestos packing and replace it with new asbestos," said Mrs Costello's lawyer Frances McCarthy.

"He also worked on pipes, which were all lagged with asbestos which sometimes flaked off, and in air ducts where he would also be exposed to asbestos."

A project to remove all the asbestos in the palace, starting with the boilers, took five years in the early 1980s.

"Unfortunately, Mr Costello was never provided with any protective mask of any kind, contrary to legal guidelines, and he did not receive any warnings that the working conditions could cause injury," Ms McCarthy said.

She warned: "It is now feared that more people who worked at the palace in the 1970s and 1980s could be suffering from similar illnesses as at least one further palace worker has died from an asbestos disease."

news.bbc.co.uk

Pressure builds on bosses over asbestos

The rules are designed to safeguard building and maintenance workers by forcing companies to check for asbestos in buildings for which they are responsible.

About half a million buildings across the UK are thought to contain asbestos, a substance that becomes dangerous if its fibres are disturbed. Minister for work, Jane Kennedy, said: "It must surely make good business sense to find out whether your premises contain asbestos, and then make certain that building and maintenance workers are warned in advance."

However, lawyers at consultancy firm Associa say the rule tightening could be a step too far for some employers, who face unlimited fines and even imprisonment if found liable for workers' ill-health. Liz Bunting, a legal adviser at the organisation, said: "Employers should not be just concerned with protecting employees. Even contractors working on a business premises need to be safeguarded. Reckless employers could find their heating engineer or burglar alarm installer seeking damages if exposed to asbestos."

Story from FPB: www.fpb.org

Asbestos cancer kills 32-year-old

A man thought to be one of the youngest persons in the UK to contract asbestos related cancer has died. Barry Welch, a 32-year-old father of three from Leicester, was diagnosed with mesothelioma last year. He was diagnosed with the cancer last September and given just six months to live.

At the time, Barry Welch said: "I am an innocent victim. It just seems so unfair that my life will be cut short, even though I never knowingly came into contact or worked with asbestos." Solicitors for the Welch’s are pursuing a claim for compensation against a former employer.

Yorkshire Post. The Courier

Asbestos claims more lives

Britain is one of the worst hit countries in the world for asbestos deaths, a global epidemic currently claiming at least one life every five minutes. Cases are so commonplace in the UK these days they only merit a few lines in local newspapers.

Inquest reports this week include a Stourbridge man who died from asbestos exposure after working as an electrician at a pig farm, where he drilled holes through the asbestos cement roof. Geoffrey Norris died aged 65 on 19 January. At Dudley Coroners Court, Black Country Coroner Robin Balmain recorded a verdict of death by industrial disease.

Retired builder John Dickerson, 73, died from the asbestos cancer mesothelioma on 7 April, Derby Coroner's Court heard this week. Deputy coroner Dr Turlough Farnan recorded a verdict that he died from the industrial disease of malignant mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos.

Hefty fines for failure to manage asbestos

FPB is warning that UK businesses run the risk of being heavily fined if they fail to properly implement an 'Asbestos Management Plan.'

The Forum of Private Business's Chief Executive Nick Goulding said critical changes have been made to Health and Safety law this year, including tough new regulations on asbestos management which carry heavy fines.

"The Health and Safety Executive will expect businesses to have found out if their premises contain asbestos. And, if they do, businesses must have assessed the risk of the fibres being released and must have made a plan to manage that risk." The asbestos regulations cover all non-domestic buildings whatever type of business is carried out in them. It is crucial to point out that if your business occupies a building, whether you own it or not, you are responsible for maintaining and repairing the property."

Asbestos epidemic hits people of working age

The perception that deadly asbestos cancers only affect people in old age is being challenged by recent tragic cases. Civil engineer John Kay, 40, has been given just months to live after being diagnosed with the asbestos cancer mesothelioma.

He has launched a High Court action for compensation against Bradford-based Kelda Group Plc – formerly Yorkshire Water – after he contracted the killer disease, a progressive and incredibly painful cancer which is very difficult to treat. The case is the latest in a series affecting people of working age.

Melvin Raymond was 63 when mesothelioma killed him in February, Derek Trelfa was 66 when he died of the same condition in January and Sylvie Tapley and Janet Watson were both just 59. Joiner Ian Lunn who died in August last year was 61 and shipyard work Ian Cruickshank only 52. Former electrician and organic farmer Raymond Gould died in August last year from mesothelioma aged 60, seven weeks after being told he had contracted the disease. Cleaning company boss Mike Brien died of mesothelioma in March aged 53.

Leicester Mercury. BBC News Online.

Manufacturer fined £136,000 for exposing employees to asbestos

Omni-Pac (UK) Ltd, a Great Yarmouth based company has been fined a total of £50,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £86,000 at Norwich Crown Court, after pleading guilty to breaching health and safety law. This criminal case follows an investigation by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the condition of asbestos containing materials (ACMs) at the firm’s site in October 2003.

Air samples showed a high level of asbestos at Omni-Pac. The primary source of contamination was from damaged and poorly maintained asbestos insulation on top of dryers used to produce the finished papier-mâché egg cartons.

 The court heard that factory bosses ignored successive demands by maintenance workers to remove the substance, instead making employees stand on top of asbestos laden machinery.

Workers were not instructed to take safety precautions such as wearing masks or gloves, and were never told that levels of exposed asbestos in the factory had reached dangerous levels.

The court was shown pictures of the factory, showing rubble piled high, lagging on the 1950s-built plant crumbling badly and debris covering the floor. All contained dangerous levels of asbestos.

Asbestos surveyor Glen White, of Microtec Air, carried out sampling in the factory, and described it as the worst working factory he had ever seen in the British Isles.

Following the hearing, Paul Carter, HSE investigating inspector, said:
"Asbestos is the single greatest cause of work-related death; breathing in asbestos fibres can lead to serious diseases, including cancer. This case demonstrates that HSE takes the failure to properly manage the risks from asbestos extremely seriously. Businesses need to ensure that they are complying with the law.

"Omni-pac failed to maintain the asbestos containing materials throughout the site, particularly in those areas at high level that were not readily visible. The company failed to adhere to its own procedures and consequently people could have been exposed asbestos over a long period of time."

Omni-pac pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing, held at Great Yarmouth Magistrates’ Court on Monday, November 7. The company admitted breaches of Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, with respect to the company’s duties both to its employees and to others who were affected by the way it conducted its undertaking.

The company was fined £25,000 for each breach.

Mitigating for Omni Pac, Stephen Killalea said:
“The company was spending a significant amount of resources on health and safety issues.

”It was moving in the right direction, albeit not fast enough.

"We cannot look at asbestos in isolation from all the other health and safety issues the company was looking at at the same time, like electrical safety."

”It meant that they took their eye off the ball when it came to asbestos - it wasn't that they weren't bothered, it was that they were concentrating on other issues."

According to HSE figures asbestos is the single greatest cause of work-related deaths in Great Britain – around 3,500 deaths each year. Inhalation of asbestos fibres can lead to serious diseases such as lung cancer, mesothelioma (cancer of the lining of the chest or abdominal wall) and asbestosis (an irreversible scarring of the lungs that causes a decrease in lung function).

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