from Sunday Herald, 10 June 2012
Severe cutbacks in the number of safety inspectors and inspections could have allowed the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Edinburgh and may cause future outbreaks in Scotland, experts have warned.
The Sunday Herald can reveal that the City of Edinburgh Council has cut its environmental health officers by 18% within the last three years – double the average cut of 9% imposed by all Scottish councils. The number of officials responsible for protecting public health in the city has reduced from 61 in 2009 to 50 in 2011.
The UK government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which helps to prevent companies across the country from harbouring and spreading the deadly legionella bacteria, has also suffered serious cuts. Its UK field operations division responsible for inspections has lost 18% of its staff – more than 250 - between 2007 and 2011.
According to the trade union, Prospect, which represents HSE inspectors, the number of preventative workplace inspections was slashed by a third last year on the instructions of UK ministers, from 30,000 to 20,000 a year.
The cutbacks were described as “staggering, shocking and savage” by one leading expert, Professor Andrew Watterson, head of the Occupational and Environment Research Group at the University of Stirling. “The crippling impact of cuts in staff numbers and resources is now threatening public health,” he said.
“The Legionnaires’ disease outbreak has happened against a backcloth of serious and continuing UK cuts, loss of staff and expertise and significant demoralisation in two crucial bodies involved: the HSE and environmental health services. These cuts must raise serious doubts about the capacity of such bodies to deal with similar future threats to public health.”
A whole raft of businesses had been arbitrarily categorised as “low risk” to enable the number of inspections to be reduced, Watterson argued. “The Legionnaires’ outbreak should be a wake-up call because so-called low risk premises such as offices and large shopping premises have cooling towers that require continuing regular inspection as well as proper maintenance if public health is to be protected.”
It was hard to imagine how the HSE could effectively enforce the regulations meant to control the risk of legionella with an ever-shrinking group of staff, he said. “Saving money by cuts in personnel and resources could cost lives in the future, as well as a great deal of money due to treatment of people made sick by neglected occupational and environmental hazards.”
Prospect warned that the Legionnaires’ outbreak highlighted the risks of cutting back on proactive inspections. “It is a stark reminder of the danger of denigrating health and safety at work and the value of effective inspection by the HSE,” said Simon Hester, the chair of the union’s HSE branch.
“Due to spending cuts, HSE’s occupational health expertise is extremely thinly spread, which has led to a lack of sufficient advice in the field. It is always preferable to avoid incidents that harm people, rather than merely investigating after the event.”
Hester added: “Prospect believes that decisions on proactive inspection should be based on professional expertise and that adequate resources are made available. HSE needs more inspectors, not less.”
The cuts to Edinburgh’s environmental health officers were disclosed to the Royal Environmental Health Institute, a professional body, in response to a freedom of information request. In all Scotland’s 32 local authorities, the number of such officers has dropped from 556 in March 2009 to 506 in September 2011.
The institute’s chief executive, Tom Bell, who used to work as an environmental health officer for Edinburgh council, pointed out that the council had lost some very experienced staff. “Common sense would suggest that there’s some kind of relationship” between cutbacks and the Legionnaires’ outbreak, he argued.
“Most people would feel that if you reduce the resource, there is the potential for problems to develop and not be remedied or identified, and operators not required to address them.”
The number of Edinburgh council departments had also been reduced from about 16 to four, he said. “You’re now a very small part of a very large department, so your voice is very hard to hear. It does make the job more difficult when it comes to arguing for resources.”
Bell was worried about the “soft touch” regulatory agenda being promoted by the UK government. Inspections should be related to the actual risk, and not be about helping businesses,” he said.
Labour MSP for Lothian, Sarah Boyack, was deeply concerned about the cutbacks. “We also need answers from the HSE as to whether they have reduced the number of proactive inspections in any of the companies which have been investigated in this contamination,” she said.
“I’ve asked the Scottish government a series of questions about the health and safety regime because I'm concerned not just about getting to the bottom of this outbreak but about ensuring that it does not happen again.”
Boyack was also worried about repeated suggestions that the source of the outbreak may never been known for certain. “It is vital that we know how it happened, so that we know that workplaces are safe for the staff that work in them and people who live in surrounding communities,” she said.
“Premises within the council's enforcement remit are inspected in accordance with an ongoing inspection programme. Work is ongoing identify the source of the outbreak.”
The HSE insisted that the number of inspectors in Scotland has remained stable since 2008, though there had been a drop from 184 in 2010 to 174 in 2012. "HSE has maintained the broad number of inspectors and other staff based in Scotland over the last five years,” said a spokeswoman. “It is wrong to claim that numbers have been significantly reduced.”
Comments