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Granite, quartz and marble worktops cut, polished and fitted. PHW assesses your people for competence on your own site and machines, and writes your slab handling and dust procedures to match.
Blyth Marble Limited in Larkhall was fined £50,000 after a worker was fatally struck by falling granite slabs. The film shows what HSE or an auditor asks next, and how on-site assessment gives you the answer.
Sound on. Captions are built in. The full transcript is on the film's own page.
Up to four of your people assessed for competence in one day, on your own site and machines, with minimum downtime. Plus a written safe-system pack for each topic.
The owner or manager of a stone or worktop fabrication workshop. Slabs come in on a lorry, move on a forklift or an A-frame, and your people cut, grind and polish them. Someone has to be able to say who is trained to do each of those jobs.
What cutting, polishing and moving slabs puts on your people.
Dry cutting, grinding and polishing stone and engineered worktops releases respirable crystalline silica, a known cause of silicosis and lung disease. Wet cutting, local exhaust ventilation and respiratory protective equipment are the controls, and health surveillance tracks the outcome over time.
Angle grinders, polishers and cutting tools put vibration into the hands and arms of anyone using them for extended periods. The risk builds across a working week, not just a single job.
Heavy slabs stored upright can fall. Unloading and storing them safely takes a written method and people who have been shown it.
A worktop or slab is heavy and awkward, and at some point in the process it usually has to be moved by hand. Handling technique and mechanical aids both matter.
Where slabs move by counterbalance forklift or are lifted with slings, the operator needs assessed competence on that machine or duty, on top of the manual handling controls.
The regulations behind each risk.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 apply to silica dust. They require exposure to be controlled, and health surveillance where it is appropriate for the protection of employees' health (regulation 11).
The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005 set exposure action and limit values for hand-arm vibration. Where an exposure action value is likely to be reached or exceeded, regulation 6 requires a programme of organisational and technical measures to reduce exposure.
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992, regulation 4, require hazardous manual handling to be avoided where reasonably practicable. Where it cannot be avoided, it must be assessed and the risk of injury reduced to the lowest level reasonably practicable.
Where a counterbalance forklift moves slabs, PUWER 1998 regulation 9 requires every person who uses work equipment to have received adequate training. Where slabs are lifted with slings, LOLER 1998 regulation 8 requires every lifting operation to be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner.
The employer decides who is competent to operate each machine and do each job. PHW's certificates, records and packs are the evidence behind that decision.
The machines, packs and records that fit a stone workshop.
Slinging slabs and signalling the driver, assessed on your own site.
View →Who is current, who is due and where the gaps are, for forklift, slab slinging, silica dust and abrasive wheels.
View →Slab handling, dust control and forklift authorisation, written for your workshop.
View →The evidence trail HSE or an auditor can ask for on the day.
Tell us what you run and how many people need assessing, and we will come back with a quote and dates.
Get a quoteHSE prosecutions in this line of work.
£50,000 · 2026-01-28
A worker offloading granite slabs alone was struck and killed when safety posts that should have held them had been removed.
Read the case →