Bio Decontamination, of York, fined for chemical incident

Bio Decontamination released hydrogen peroxide vapour, which in extreme cases can cause death or blindness, into a ward which the three were deep cleaning, said Ben Mills, prosecuting.

All three had to go to accident and emergency and now struggle to carry out day to day tasks or work, the court heard.

The area where the gas was should have been sealed off and empty of human beings, but was not, and though masking tape had been put round doors, it was porous and in places missing, said Mr Mills.

The two company employees, who were wearing inadequate PPE, were not trained properly, not supervised, didn’t use their equipment properly and continued despite hospital staff raising concerns.

Bio Decontamination, now of Micklegate, York, had only been running for nine months.

“There is a question whether profit was being put before safety - get the business running - rather than prioritise safety,” said Mr Mills, appearing for the Health and Safety Executive.

Laura Bayley, for the company, said its directors had shown “genuine remorse” for the incident at Scarborough Hospital.

Scarborough Hospital

The company had suspended all work, started a major investigation into what happened within hours and brought in outside experts to assess its operations and advise it.

That had resulted in improved training, proper risk assessment and better operation. It had since been granted a safe contractor status under the British Standards Institute accreditation process.

After the hospital incident, it had carried out thousands of jobs without problems but had effectively not been working since July 2023 and no longer had employees, said Ms Bayley.

Bio Decontamination pleaded guilty to not ensuring the health and safety of non-employees including the hospital staff affected by the chemical, not ensuring the health and safety of the two employees who had carried out the work, and failure to carry out a proper and adequate risk assessment.

District judge Adrian Lower was given company accounts showing it had a turnover of £85,000 and a gross profit of £79,188 in 2022 and a turnover of £41,098 and a gross profit of £20,539 from January 1, 2023, to September 30, 2023.

He ordered it to pay a total of £44,173, consisting of a £16,775 fine, £27,228 prosecution costs and a £170 statutory surcharge.

He said that whether profit was put before safety was a matter of conjecture, hospital staff other than the three affected had been in the ward and the risk to public health had continued after the two company employees left. They had spent five hours in the ward.

He said the three hospital staff each had a list of medical problems as a result of their exposure. All three are suing the company for compensation.

York Hospital (Image: Newsquest)

Mr Mills said Bio Decontamination gave demonstrations of its work at York Hospital to York Teaching Hospitals Trust management in summer 2019 with a view to gaining a contract.

On September 18, 2019, it sent its employees to decontaminate Aspen Ward at Scarborough Hospital where there was an infection of clostridium difficile which can cause diarrhoea.

It wasn’t clear whether this was another demonstration or a job. The deep cleaning was supposed to be finished before the decontamination, but the employees started before it finished.

Ms Bayley said the company had not been paid the £75,000 it was expecting for the job and decontaminating another ward. The company is now in financial difficulties, the court heard.