Practical Health and Safety Guidance for UK Employers

Mykhalio Hustei was 35 years old. He worked as a labourer on a construction site in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, building flats for a family-run property development business. He also lived there — in a property adjoining the site. On the night of 22 October 2021, he went out with friends. On the way back to his flat, he walked across the construction site and fell into one of the open excavation holes. The hole was filled with rainwater. His body was found at around 2pm the following day. He drowned.

In May 2026, HSE did something it has never done before. It published COSHH guidance specifically for engineered stone fabrication — guidance that makes one thing absolutely clear: dry cutting of engineered stone is unacceptable. Not inadvisable. Not discouraged. Unacceptable. At the same time, it launched a programme of over 1,000 inspections of stone fabricators across Great Britain, and those inspections are already underway.

On 22 May 2026, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Ltd was fined £600,000 at Grimsby Magistrates' Court after one of its employees was left permanently paralysed from the waist down at the company's wind turbine blade manufacturing facility in Hull. The employee, a 37-year-old woman, was left paraplegic when an 800kg pre-cast blade structure collapsed on her while she and a colleague were preparing it for the next stage of construction. She had worked for the company. She was left unable to walk. And it was entirely preventable.

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Why these cases matter

Free health and safety templates are widely available online and are often the first option businesses turn to when trying to put documentation in place quickly.

Whether it’s a request from a client, a contractor requirement, or simply meeting legal duties, knowing where to start can be difficult—particularly when time is limited and expectations are unclear.

As a business owner in the North East, you know that our region has a unique industrial landscape—from the bustling construction sites in Newcastle to the manufacturing hubs of Sunderland and the independent trades in Durham. While health and safety regulations are national, their application is always local.