In their operational year 2017/18, the Health & Safety Executive issued a total of 34 notices (32 improvement, 2 prohibition) to 20 UK foundries.
The notices cover both safety and occupational health ranging from unguarded machinery through to lack of cleaning and maintenance of cooling towers to control legionella and use of airlines for blowing out sand moulds, lack of PPE being used and more.
Over half of the breaches for occupational health were for the failure to conduct a risk assessment and therefore identify what hazards exist or how they should be controlled. The areas this applied to included, respirable crystalline silica (RCS), legionella, noise and vibration. With the HSE strategies actively targeting occupational lung disease and musculoskeletal disorders, all foundries should be ensuring that they have up to date, suitable and sufficient risk assessments in place.