§ Mr. Tony LloydTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what measures are being taken by the Health and Safety Executive factory inspectorate and the employment medical advisory service to investigate reports of ill-health by employees of hazardous waste disposal companies.
§ Mr. ForthRegulation 5 of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1985 requires certain occupational diseases to be reported to the appropriate enforcing authority. The information on all reports of diseases made to the Health and Safety Executive, including those in respect of employees of hazardous waste disposal companies, is verified by HSE's Employment Medical Advisory Service to ensure that it is accurate and complete. EMAS investigates all reported exposures to toxic substances. Other incidents are selected for investigation if in the judgment of the employment medical adviser, intervention may secure prevention or recurrence, prevent exposure of other workers, or derive new information about the cause or prevention of occupational ill health.
EMAS liaises closely with HSE's factory inspectorate, which also determines, using similar criteria, whether a report of an occupational disease should be investigated. The subsequent investigation of those reports selected may be carried out either independently by factory inspectors, jointly by factory inspectors and EMAS, or by EMAS at the request of the factory inspectorate.
A current priority of HSE's field operations division is to raise awareness of occupational health in industry.