Occupational Lung Disease

Occupational Lung Diseases are a range of lung diseases caused by exposures in the workplace. These include respiratory cancers, occupational asthma, pneumoconiosis and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and are estimated to lead to around 12,000 deaths per year, with 400,000 working days lost in Great Britain. Most of these diseases have a long latency period (apart from occupational asthma), meaning that symptoms typically only become apparent years after first exposure to causative agents.

Click here for detailed information and resources relating to asbestos, isocyanates, masks and Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE).

Dust in the Workplace

The HSE recently announced they are starting inspection visits to sites across the UK to ensure proper control measures are in place in workplaces where dust poses a risk to health.

Click here for full information and downloadable resources in the HSE's “Dust Hub” to assist employers with controlling exposure to dust in the workplace.

Silica Dust Prosecution

The health of two employees was put at risk as a result of using powered tools to cut flagstones without any respiratory protective equipment.  Their employer failed to provide adequate control measures and was duly fined for breaching COSHH regulations, as described in this summary from the HSE.

Click here to see Napo film’s: Dust at work

Sitting at a desk for 9 hours a day raises the risk of early death, study finds

Research recently published in the BMJ, found that people aged 40 years or older who sit still for nine and a half hours per day are two and a half times more likely to die early. Standing and walking around the office did not mitigate the risk but light activities for five hours a day or moderate to vigorous activity for 24 minutes daily reduced the risk of dying early by five times.

It was proposed in the study that adults in their forties and fifties need to invest in their health in order to not only add years to their life but also to improve how long they might remain well and independent. Aerobic exercise such as walking, cycling and swimming is recommended, as are improvements to balance and the strength of bones and muscles.

HAVS in Horticulture

Do you have employees who work with vibrating tools such as hedge trimmers, powered mowers or ride-on mowers (which can transmit vibration through the steering wheel)?

New guidance for employers published by the HSE in May 2019 is offered for employers to help them comply with the Control of Vibration at Work Regs 2005 to protect horticultural workers from risks of developing hand arm vibration syndrome.

Dying to Work?

The Dying to Work campaign was founded by Jacci Woodcock who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012. She started the campaign as a result of her own experiences relating to how she was poorly supported at work.

Employers can sign up to the Dying to Work charter. The campaign provides support for employees regardless of whether they wish to work or not after a diagnosis of terminal disease.

Click here to find out more.

Occupational Disease - a snippet from the past

Percival Pott, an English surgeon born in 1714, is credited as being the first scientist to show that cancer may be caused by environmental hazards.

He theorised that the high prevalence of scrotal sores in chimney sweeps working in London - which had previously been thought due to venereal disease - were cancerous sores related to soot. “Chimney Sweep’s Carcinoma” became a medical diagnosis in industrial (occupational) medicine, is a form of skin cancer affecting young men in their teens or early twenties.

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