Asbestos Matters - no other matters just Asbestos Matters

Gina Lees – A Symbol of Britain's Third Wave of Asbestos Deaths, 2000
Studies of the global impact of asbestos have identified three waves of deaths: the first was amongst those people who worked directly with asbestos such as Nellie Kershaw, Nora Dockerty and Alice Jefferson, the second affected workers like Bill Tait who used asbestos products whilst the third is associated with exposure to asbestos in situ such as that experienced by plumbers, electricians, carpenters and refurbishment workers.

In 2000, at age 51, Gina Lees died of asbestos cancer, a mere three months after her condition had been diagnosed. Gina had never worked with asbestos, nor lived near an asbestos factory; none of her relatives had worked in an industrial setting where they were exposed to asbestos. When she was diagnosed with the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma, neither she nor her husband could comprehend how a primary schoolteacher could contract an industrial disease. So began a personal quest by her husband Michael for an explanation.

As Michael pored through government records, witness statements and archival material, he put together a dossier, which revealed appalling behaviour by successive governments determined to ignore the deadly problem posed by asbestos in schools. Michael discovered that most of the 25 schools in which Gina had worked during her teaching career contained asbestos products, which were often in a damaged and dangerous condition, a fact that was unknown to the schools' head teachers, governors and staff. When Michael raised his concerns with the authorities, he was “dismayed” by their indifference.

During the course of his research activities, Michael made contact with asbestos victims, scientific experts, trade unionists and public health campaigners, as a result of which a network to tackle the “national scandal” of asbestos in UK schools was born. Gina Lees was not the first schoolteacher to die of hazardous workplace exposure and she won't be the last but her case was the catalyst for the unprecedented mobilization on asbestos in schools, which has taken place in recent years.

This article by kind permission of: Laurie Kazan-Allen

http://ibasecretariat.org/lka-female-face-of-britains-asbestos-catastrophe.php

Figures showing the latest statistics published by the Health & Safety Executive tell the true story of the dangers of asbestos in the workplace, around 4500 workers are dying each year from the ‘hidden killer’.

Training forms an integral part of the Health & safety Executives strategy for reducing the risks and of course reducing the yearly totals of deaths within the UK’s construction and refurbishment industries. Training is often viewed as an encumbrance or an unnecessary expense for any business large or small. This is especially true to day due to the current economic climate where budgets are stretched and cost cutting measures are being put in place. Many employers can then take the decision to put their training budgets and training strategies on the ‘back burner’ or worse again take the il-fated route of the ‘fly by the seat of their pants’ decision, putting workers at risk of exposure to asbestos whilst at work..

The Asbestos Specialists have over 20 years experience in the asbestos awareness and asbestos management training industry, and this experience tells a different story!

Ignoring your statutory duties or simply turning that blind eye to your training requirements is a false economy, especially in the area of asbestos awareness.
A recent case highlighted the case of is the Mercure Goldthorn hotel in Wolverhampton who, according to Wolverhampton City Council, have just been fined £10,000 for exposing their staff to dangerous levels of asbestos. It was reported that the council’s Environmental Health team had successfully prosecuted the owners of the hotel after an earlier inspection carried out in 2012, which identified the presence of asbestos in the hotel’s boiler house. The boiler house had contained asbestos insulation, which was in poor condition, and many staff had had occasion to spend time in the boiler house as part of their normal working duties.

The subsequent result....The owners pleaded guilty under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 to failing to make an adequate assessment of asbestos containing materials and to exposing their employees to asbestos.

Wolverhampton City Council’s Head of Regulatory Services, Andy Jervis, said:

“Being exposed to asbestos puts lives at risks and it is imperative that all employers ensure that their staff are not exposed to such danger”.

In addition to the £10,000 fine, the hotel owners were ordered to pay over £2,000 in costs.

So, the moral of the story is...review your training, the Asbestos Specialists have a full range of services to assist you to keep your training up to date, E-learning, Distance Learning and of course the traditional face to face method. All of our courses are fully approved/accredited and of course our top class customer service comes as standard.

We are running a series of information blogs to make you aware of the legal guidelines which apply to you with regards to asbestos in buildings, our first in the series looks at: Homeowners

The current regulations do not place any legal obligations on domestic homeowners with regard to how asbestos containing materials (ACMs) are handled on your own property. This is true for the owner of the property, anyone living at the property or a friend of a resident acting on his or her behalf, without reward. Most ACMs in domestic premises do not pose a measurable risk, due to the fact that they are made up from composite or cement and fibre mixtures firmly bound within the matrix of the material. Under normal circumstances these materials if left undisturbed pose a very low risk. Here are some examples:

• Cement roofing


• Vinyl floor tiles and flooring


• Sink pads


• Water storage tanks


• Toilet cisterns and toilet seats

Regardless of the age, or type of, the building you live in it is worth finding out what you have and how best to maintain it in good condition. For the majority of materials, following common sense guidance protocols to maintain them in good condition will ensure that you do not expose yourself, or your family, to any health risks or potential complications when selling your property.

If you contract a third party to undertake work on any of the ACMs, you should make them aware of any information you may have about the materials. You should also request information from them with regards to their employees having received a suitable level of training in the handling or removal of ACMs and the use of equipment and PPE used to minimise the risk to them; and of course you, your family and neighbours.

Another useful check is to request that whoever you employ to work on the ACMs is licensed (where applicable) and insured to work with the type of asbestos that you have. Only insulating materials of a low density and therefore friable nature require a specialist HSE licensed contractor and 14 days notification to the HSE prior to removal. Fortunately, these materials are quite rare and only make up of approximately 10% of all asbestos materials found throughout the UK.

Whilst you are legally allowed to work on and remove low-density materials yourself, a trained professional will ensure that it is done in accordance with strict measures to ensure maximum safety.

The purpose behind Workers' Memorial Day has always been to "remember the dead: fight for the living" and unions are asked to focus on both areas, by considering events or memorial to remember all those killed through work but at the same time ensuring that such tragedies are not repeated.

Building trade union organisation, and campaigning for stricter enforcement with higher penalties for breaches of health & safety laws can best do that.

Workers Memorial Day is commemorated throughout the world and is officially recognised by the UK Government.

This year the theme is 'Protecting workers around the world through strong regulation, enforcement and union rights' The TUC believes that we should use the day to highlight the need for strong regulation an national, European and global level. We need to stop companies in the UK from benefitting from the lack of health and safety standards that lead to disasters such as the Bangladesh factory collapse that killed over 1,100 workers. We also need a strong strategy on health and safety from the European Commission which will raise standards throughout Europe, while in the UK we need an end to the cuts in enforcement and regulation and instead action to tackle the huge number of occupational diseases and injuries.

In 1985 the asbestos prohibition regulations ensured the final uses, importation and installation of products containing blue and brown asbestos fibres. However, unfortunately, this only encouraged the public perception that white asbestos fibres were of less risk. This was due to the fact that in the United Kingdom we continued to use white asbestos in many building products that are still found in hundreds of thousands of properties even today.

Considerable amounts of white asbestos were then prohibited in an amendment to the Prohibition Regulations in 1992 and 7 years later the total banning of white asbestos was finally banned in 1999. In the late 1990s, within the United Kingdom, more than 1,800 tons were still being imported.

The ‘sting in the tail’ however is, at the same time, cases of mesothelioma were found to be increasing by more than 100-fold from the 153 cases reported in 1968 to 1,848 in 2001.
The long gestation period of up to 50 years or more from initial exposure to first appearance of related symptoms has produced 22,471 reported UK deaths from mesothelioma in the first decade of the 21st century.

According to figures released from the Health & Safety Executive, the UK’s annual mesothelioma death rate had increased to 1,967 by 2010, rising to 2,291 deaths in 2011, one of the highest figures worldwide, and is forecast to further rise over the next ten years at least.

The future of global asbestos-related deaths continues to be of increasing concern as a result of expanding asbestos exports from Russia and China. Furthermore, it has been forecast that mortality figures could hit 10 million within the next 20 years.

The perception of asbestos being ‘an old mans disease’ simply isn’t true. Many people in their 50s and 60s are now dying from this hidden killer…protect yourself, protect your family and protect your employees now.

The Asbestos Specialists range of asbestos training courses are recognised as the best in the business! Call us now if you want to reduce the risk of being exposed to this hidden killer.

We have posted exclusive discount codes to our social media campaigns that will offer £10 off your next asbestos awareness course.

The discount codes are only valid until the 23/03/2014 so don’t miss out!

Don’t forget to follow us as well so that you don’t miss out on any important information, events or discounts in the future!
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In a series of typical questions asked about asbestos and employers legal duties relating to your legal duties, we will be posting a series of blogs giving you the real answers in real simple terms.

Our first in this series is:

‘Why is asbestos dangerous?’
Asbestos is responsible for over 4500 deaths every year. Younger people, if routinely exposed to asbestos fibres over time, are at greater risk of developing asbestos-related disease than older workers. This is due to the time it takes for the body to develop symptoms after exposure to asbestos (latency). Exposure to asbestos can cause four main diseases:

• Mesothelioma (a cancer of the lining of the lungs; it is always fatal and is almost exclusively caused by exposure to asbestos)
• Asbestos-related lung cancer (which is almost always fatal)
• Asbestosis (a scarring of the lungs which is not always fatal but can be a very debilitating disease, greatly affecting quality of life)
• Diffuse pleural thickening (a thickening of the membrane surrounding the lungs which can restrict lung expansion leading to breathlessness.)

It can take anywhere between 15-60 years for any symptoms to develop after exposure, so these diseases will not affect you immediately but may do later in life. You need to start protecting yourself against any exposure to asbestos now because the effect is cumulative.

Asbestos was a widely used material within commercial buildings, homes and machinery until 1999, when it was banned. This means that asbestos is common in the general environment. However, working directly with asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) can give personal exposures to airborne asbestos that are much higher than normal environmental levels. Repeated occupational exposures can give rise to a substantial cumulative exposure over time. This will increase the risk of developing an asbestos-related disease in the future.

The majority of the current fatal cases from asbestos exposure (approximately 4500 deaths per year) are associated with very high exposures from past industrial processes and installation of asbestos products.

Source: HSE 2014

Today, 1st March 2014, we are officially launching our social media campaigns. We can now be found on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
As an exclusive promotion to celebrate the launch, we have posted discount codes on each campaign that will offer a £10 discount per e-learning course booked through our website.
We will be keeping them frequently updated with company announcements, news, new blog posts and exclusive discount codes; so be sure to follow us so that you don’t miss out!
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We would like to speak more about our new free mobile app.

We are the 1st training provider to develop an app for our services. Our app provides its users with concise information about who we are, what we can offer and even a mobile optimised taster of our asbestos awareness e-learning course! It also provides a direct link to purchase the course and the ability to contact us directly through a clear and easy to fill ‘one-touch-access’ contact form.
The benefits of this for you and our clients are clear. By providing an app it makes all types of communication more pleasant and appealing for all of our customers thus building better relationships between you and ourselves. Further to this, many professionals struggle to find time to sit down at a computer to research information on their training requirements, let alone purchase a training course – our app allows those to do this on the go wherever they are. Most of the information is even available offline, meaning that if you are in an area that doesn't provide a 3G or 4G signal, you can still access the information that you require!
In short, all of this together offers a fast and simple to use window to our company that, once downloaded, is always with you, wherever you go.

The free app is available for download from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store for Apple and Andriod devices.
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Asbestos Matters was established in 2006 as a newsletter to keep anybody in the industry informed of any asbestos related news and events.

Recently, we have been very busy working behind the scenes to ensure that our clients and customers have the best possible experience with our training services and allowing us to remain the leaders of innovation within the asbestos training industry.

This has included a brand new website with a brand new asbestos awareness training course. We worked to ensure the inclusion of features that really bring our services in line with the most up to date web technologies. Our site and e-learning courses now run exclusively with HTML5 – this means that it is fully compatible with all the latest web browsers as well as mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads and Andriod phones and tablets. To coincide with this, we have also developed an app that is available on iOS and Android. The link to these can be found at the bottom of this article.

We are also very excited to announce the launch or our social media campaigns coming early this March. Links to these can be found at the bottom of this blog as well. Be sure to keep an eye on these for exclusive discount codes that can be used to purchase our online asbestos awareness courses!

As an introduction to the 2014 re-launch of Asbestos Matters, we thought we would take this opportunity to introduce the team behind the scenes here at The Asbestos Specialists training and advice centre.
After a major overhaul and re-structuring of the business in November 2010 we brought in a specialist team of technical and specialist IT personnel to re-launch in January 2011.
Major investment has continued and will continue to ensure that we maintain our position as the most innovative, original and customer focused asbestos training provider in the UK.

Introducing the Asbestos Specialists and the team:

Luke Gourley:
Luke joined the Asbestos Specialists back in 2012. Luke’s main role in the company is to provide technical and training support. Luke will also deal with your training queries and ensure that you get the advice you need, making sure the course you book for you or your employees meets your training needs and requirements. Luke also monitors and controls our customer feedback programme Trustpilot ©, as well as taking care of our company’s social media campaigns.

Demi Miller:
Demi also joined the Asbestos Specialists in 2012 as part of our continued improvement in providing fast and efficient customer handling services. Demi’s main role is providing close customer training advice and account support. Demi will also be responsible for handling your call and giving general advice and support with your training courses. Demi’s also supports Luke with our social media campaigns, keeping them up to date with all the news about The Asbestos Specialists including exclusive discount offers, new courses and industry news.

Marion and Les Cooper:
The Asbestos Specialists (UKasl) were formed by Marion and Les in 2003. Between them there is over 30years experience in the provision of Asbestos training throughout the UK and Europe.

Marion is the company’s Director, dealing with senior accounts handling and customer relations. Marion will also take your calls and provide you with clear and valuable advice on your choice of training options; and of course offering you the most cost effective options to ensure you get best quality and best value 100% of the time.

Managing Director Les’ experience, knowledge and expertise are acknowledged as being unsurpassed in all aspects of the asbestos awareness, management and asbestos removal in training industry. Les has worked in the industry for over 20 years as a leading training consultant, using his background in construction and refurbishment industries to build the courses to the highest standards available, whilst ensuring compliance with Health & Safety Executive legal requirements in all aspects of the syllabus used. Les can also be on hand to help with general advice about any asbestos matters you may have, if ever you need to discuss a training or compliance issue just ask for him.

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