We often talk about health and safety horror stories on this blog, and the health and safety horror story of the past year has without a doubt been the fallout from the rollercoaster crash at Alton Towers last summer.

In case you've somehow missed the media's coverage of this horrible accident, here's a brief recap: on the 2nd of June, 2015, a carriage carrying 16 people crashed into another (empty) carriage on a rollercoaster called The Smiler at the Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire. Five people were seriously injured, and two of them - Vicky Balch and Leah Washington - ended up losing a leg each. Merlin Entertainments, the company that owns and operates the Alton Towers park, was investigated and taken to court over the incident, and last week a judge at Stafford crown court ordered them to pay a fine of £5 million.

There really are no winners here: Alton Towers have lost a lot of business in addition to the huge fine, and two young women were forced to undergo life-changing amputations that no amount of compensation will undo. However, a slender silver lining may be found in the possibility that this horrific incident and the ensuing media attention and court ruling may serve as a stern warning to other businesses (as well as to Merlin Entertainments themselves going forward). Paul Paxton, the lawyer who represented Balch and Washington in court, put it well in a statement outside the court after the judge's verdict had been delivered:

"My clients...have been shocked and disappointed by [Merlin's] catalogue of errors.The list goes on and on: the catastrophic failure to assess risk, the inadequate training, inadequate supervision, inadequate management, failure to communicate, failure to put in place safe systems of work. But this has not been about retribution; this has been about finding out why this accident happened and making sure that lessons have been learned, not just by Merlin but by others throughout the industry."

With that in mind, here's what businesses of all sizes in all sectors can learn from this case:

1. The Value of Risk Assessments

The judge at Stafford crown court ruled that Merlin's aforementioned "catastrophic failure to assess risk" was largely to blame for the Smiler incident. Risk assessments are important in every line of work; whether your workers are maintaining rollercoasters or moving boxes, you as a business owner are legally required to carry out a thorough risk assessment in order to identify any and all health and safety hazards that may exist in the working environment you're providing.

2. Putting in Place Safe Systems of Work

Spotting potential risks is just the first step towards total safety. After you've completed your risk assessment, you need to compose and implement a safe system of work that's designed to prevent accidents and injuries from occurring.

3. The Importance of Safety Training

Once you've identified possible risks and put a system in place to neutralise them, it's crucial that you train your staff to work within that system. It's all well and good coming up with a plan to minimise safety risks, but it won't help anyone unless the people on the ground are trained to put it into action!

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Recently a new range of mandatory and prohibition safety symbol labels have been added to our safety label ranges.

These are available in three sizes (50mm diameter, 75mm diameter and 100mm diameter) and are supplied in pack sizes of 25 labels. These self adhesive labels are manufactured in self adhesive vinyl, with a clear protective laminated surface, providing protection from scratching or rubbing, mild chemicals and household cleaning solvents, as well as being waterproof.

The mandatory range include eye, ear, hand and foot protection, read manual or instructions, keep locked, lifting point, two person handling and wash your hands.

The prohibition range comprise no smoking, no naked flames, and restrictions on touching, reaching in, stepping on or sitting on, as well as pinch points.

These labels can be used on a variety of plant, equipment, fixtures and fittings to emphasise safe operating practices. All the products comply with ISO EN 1710 and the Safety Signs and Signals Regulations 1996.

Working at height can be a very dangerous practice. According to the HSE's 2013/14 statistics on Slips, Trips & Falls, falls from height are the most comon cause of workplace fatalities in the UK, accounting for roughly 3 out of every 10 worker deaths in this country. Even when non-fatal, falling from height can result in all kinds of severe injuries, which is why it's important to take health and safety guidelines seriously when you and/or your employees work at height.

You might think that height safety isn't a concern for your company, but working at height doesn't necessarily mean being thirty feet off the ground. The HSE themselves state that ANY work carried out in a place where "a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury" counts as 'working at height', so that covers everything from rooftops and scaffolds to that chairs that some people will stand on to change a lightbulb.

What can I do to prevent falls from height?

As with any area of health and safety, the first step towards minimising the risk of a nasty fall is to carry out a thorough risk asssesment of the work being done and the working environment you're providing for it. A proper risk assessment should provide you with a list of things to do in order to ensure everybody's safety - depending on the industry you're in, this might include providing safety harnesses, installing an edge protection system, and/or using appropriate signs and labels to warn workers and others of any risks presents.

Here at Label Source, we stock a selection of safety signs and notices that are specifically designed to promote safety while working at height. These include:

• Safety Sign: 'Wear Safety Harness'
• Safety Sign: 'Wear Fall Arrest Equipment'
• Safety Sign: 'CAUTION - Mind the Drop'
• Work at Height Guide Poster

We share a lot of health and safety stories on this blog, many of which focus on the news that yet another organisation has been prosecuted and fined for poor safety practices. More often than not, these law-breaking companies are in high-risk fields like construction and industrial manufacturing, and they're caught out because a worker suffered an injury (or worse) that would have been prevented had the proper regulations been observed.

Today, however, we'd like to share a news story which demonstrates that every company in every industry must abide by the rules or face the consequences. Earlier this week, The Enquirer reported that a business in Essex had been fined £20,000 for a number of unsafe practices. So what type of business was this? An engineering firm? A large factory?

No and no; in actual fact, it was the Crown Café in Southend-on-Sea. Last week, Southend Magistrates Court found the business guilty of the following food hygiene / health and safety breaches:

• No wash basin exclusively designated for hand washing in the kitchen
• No documented food safety management system
• Failure to maintain electrical installations in the café

These issues were documented during an inspection of the café in August 2015. Inspectors issues three Improvement Notices, but a follow-up inspection one year later found that the Notices had not been acted upon and that the problems were still there. As a result, Ms De'Ath was ordered to pay £1,440 (plus £1,000 in costs), and the business itself was fined £16,000 (plus £2,162.50 in costs). On top of that, Ms De'Ath and her business had to pay a victim surcharge totalling £188.

After the sentence had been delivered, a local councillor made the following statement:

"We hope this successful prosecution sends out a clear message to food businesses that you must take your responsibilities for food hygiene and health and safety seriously...we will take any action necessary to protect the public from harm."

Health and safety is a crucial concern for all organisations across all sectors. No matter what products or services you provide, it is your responsibility as a business owner to carry out a full risk assessment and take any measures necessary to minimise the risk that someone will come to harm on your premises or as a result of your operations. If you work in the food industry, then hygiene should of course be a key priority, but you are also bound by the same general health and safety legislation as any other commercial organisation. Don't let yourself end up in court like the owner of the Crown Café!

Here at Label Source, we stock a number of signs and notices to help promote hygiene and safety in a kitchen environment. Click here to browse our Kitchen Safety Signs range.

An engineering firm in Hampshire has been fined £14 thousand (plus costs) over an incident that left one worker with a severed finger.

Pictured: 'WARNING: Keep hands clear. Moving parts.' safety label

Repro Engineering of Waterlooville (roughly 8 miles from Portsmouth) were ordered to pay up after an HSE inquiry concluded that the injury "could have been prevented by more active and robust management action". The incident in question occurred back in July 2015: the worker was trying to fix a jam in the lathe he was using when his hand came into contact with the machine's moving parts. He ended up losing a finger as a result.

This case was heard at Portsmouth Magistrates' Court, and Repro Engineering plead guilty to breaching Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998*. Their primary offence was allowing access to the machine's moving parts while it was in operation, a very unsafe practice that sadly resulted in a rather gruesome accident.

Moving machine parts can be extremely dangerous, and this is why it's important to nurture safe working practices within any environment where they are present. Here at Label Source, we stock a variety of products that can help to prevent moving part accidents and remind workers of the risks associated with them:

• 'Keep Hands Clear' Label
• 'Moving Parts Can Crush or Cut' Label
• 'Danger - Moving Machinery' Sign
• 'Caution - Rotating Parts' Sign

*Specifically Regulation 11(1), which decrees that "every employer shall ensure that measures are taken...to prevent access to any dangerous part of machinery or to any rotating stock-bar [or] to stop the movement of any dangerous part of machinery or rotating stock-bar before any part of a person enters a danger zone".

Source: LRB Consulting