Sixteen Sussex companies have been named and shamed today over their record on safety at work.

They include the firm running a nursing home where a resident was scalded to death and a security company where an employee was suffocated by an unsafe gas heater.

Also in the list is Seeboard, one of Sussex's biggest employers. The power firm was fined £4,000 after a worker received an electric shock.

The deaths both led to successful prosecutions by the Health and Safety Executive.

Associate Nursing Services was fined £15,000 after a resident in an Eastbourne home was fatally scalded while being bathed by a care assistant last year.

The HSE found Kestrel House had no thermostatic monitored valves, no bathing policy, incomplete risk assessments and no planned maintenance checks on hot water.

BW Security Ltd, also based in Eastbourne, paid out £10,000 after an employee died in a camper van.

Its gas appliances had been unsafely converted by a third party.

The HSE is publicising details of cases on its website for the first time as part of a campaign to impose larger fines.

At the moment the average fine is £7,000. Sussex firms paid out a total of £130,850 in the past year.

HSE director-general Timothy Walker said: "I want to create pressure to improve on those who have failed in their responsibilities towards workers and the general public.

"I also hope it will deter others, who will not want to be named in this way.

"Society has a right to expect that when a business or individual is found guilty, the penalty handed down reflects the seriousness of the offence. This is simply not happening enough."

Seeboard was fined after a worker suffered an electric shock while working on an 11,000-volt power line at Horsham.

It had not taken suitable precautions to prevent employees using uninsulated crimping hoses on the live line. Employees were not told the hoses were unsafe.

The biggest fine, £30,000, was handed out to manufacturer Wenban-Smith Ltd, of Worthing.

A 17-year-old employee lost half his arm after it became caught in a wood waste extraction silo.

Construction company Firthglow Ltd of Crawley paid out £15,000 after a 17-year-old worker lit a cigarette after spilling white spirit on himself. He had received no training, information or supervision.

Another worker at Balfour Beatty Rail Maintenance Ltd in Lewes lost two fingers when a rail fell on to his hand. The company was fined £4,500.

Nationally, the number of work-related deaths has fallen from 253 to 218 in the past year.