Day 128 - 24 May 95 - Page 18
1 I have recently received a complaint from a member of staff
2 that crew at the above restaurant are regularly burning
3 their hands whilst cleaning the mini clam shell grilles.
4 Having visited the premises and examined the accident book
5 it would appear that the complaint is justified and thereby
6 warrants remedial action.
7
8 My investigation identified two separate areas of concern.
9 The first being the restricted lift of the top platten
10 which significantly reduces the angle of opening which can
11 be achieved on the standard unit. The second concern
12 relates to the enforced protocol of some supervisory staff
13 who insist that the plattens and back plate are scraped and
14 wiped after every cooking operation, the crew taking not
15 more than 10 seconds to complete the cleaning.
16
17 In view of the restricted access to the high temperature
18 plattens and back plate coupled with the speed of
19 operation, I feel that this does not constitute a safe
20 system of work in accordance with the above statutory
21 provisions.
22
23 I would therefore be obliged if you advise me of your
24 comments and future proposals to rectify this
25 unsatisfactory situation which I will give my full
26 consideration before taking further action. M.A. Nelson,
27 Team Leader".
28
29 These grills that he is referring to, or she, sorry -- is
30 it he or she?
31 A. He.
32
33 Q. Is that the clamshell grills you were referring to, saying
34 there had been a reduced rate of burns since they were
35 introduced?
36 A. I do not know because, as you will see from the next
37 page, Mark Hathaway, who works for me in Birmingham,
38 actually visited. I suspect it could have been the mini
39 clamshells grill that we did have for a while, which we
40 used specifically for cooking quarter pounders. You could
41 only fit two patties underneath them, and they were quite
42 small and difficult to get back.
43
44 We phased these out as we put four clamshells into all
45 restaurants. I can see from Mark's response that one of
46 the things that they did there was to put in a second full
47 clamshell unit, but he also makes the comments there that
48 the burns Mr. Nelson was concerned about was when the
49 equipment was quite new, which really goes back to what
50 I was saying when I was Trainee Manager; it is so difficult
51 when you are new, just to be on the ball all the time.
52
53 You can see there we followed up with some information in
54 the restaurant as well, and certainly all the restaurants
55 now have clamshell grills. It is the route that we decided
56 to go, and there is a specific technique for cleaning the
57 back of the clamshell. I think it also perhaps an
58 illustration that one piece of equipment might decrease the
59 risk in one way. For example, people stumbling or falling
60 and putting their hand on the grill, but might bring a
