Legislation and Compliance
Health and safety when working at height
Mark Winfield, director of training at HSS Hire, discusses the importance of adequate health and safety training as well as making the right choice when working at height.
accidents? You may think you are, but the statistics suggest that there is still significant room for improvement. It is an unfortunate fact of life that accidents happen, but it’s every employer’s responsibility to minimise that risk. Falling from height continues to be
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the most frequent cause of accidents across the maintenance, building and construction sectors. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2008/09 alone, more than 4,000 employees suffered a major injury as a result from a fall while working at height, costing the UK economy over £800m. The Work at Height (WAH)
regulations came into force in 2005 providing guidance on a wide range of working at height scenarios such as cleaning windows, inspecting gutters, repairing skylights, painting high walls, working on scaffolding and roof maintenance work. These regulations impose very clear responsibility on employers, the self-employed, in fact, on any person that manages someone working at height, to follow the guidelines which include things like: • Avoid working from height where there may be an obvious risk of a fall liable to cause personal injury
• Consider alternative approaches to working at height
• If working at height cannot be avoided, use appropriate work equipment
• If the risk of a fall cannot be eliminated, further measures and safety equipment must be used to minimise the distance and consequence of any fall
But what exactly constitutes 6
re you doing everything you can do to protect your employees from height related
‘appropriate work equipment’? We know that it must ensure user safety while maintaining job efficiency but there are many types of access equipment available to support those working at height so the most appropriate will always depend on the task in hand and the working conditions. The common ladder is,
unsurprisingly a popular choice for many workers as it provides no-nonsense, immediate access to a specific height. But the ladder isn’t perhaps always as appropriate as you may think. According to the HSE, a third of all reported working at height incidents involve ladders, accounting for 14 deaths and 1,200 major injuries to workers each year. However many of these accidents and injuries could be prevented, by ensuring equipment is fit for purpose and is used correctly – it may be surprising, but yes, there are ‘safe operating guidelines’ for ladders. And while it may be tempting to
use a ladder for all sorts of work at height, a ladder should only really be used as a method of reaching a work platform and not as a platform in itself. There are a number of alternative
access solutions that may be more appropriate to many jobs and these alternatives should always be considered, particularly if you’ll be working at height for more than 30 minutes or need to be able to use both hands. From mobile elevated working platforms, podium steps, pop- ups and power towers there are plenty of other low-level access products available. In fact, at HSS, we’ve recently teamed up with JLG, the leading designer and manufacturer of access equipment, to offer the LiftPod in the UK for the first time. The LiftPods are portable, elevated work platforms that
enable users to work hands-free at heights of up to 14 ft and with a 360 degree range of motion. Easy and safe to assemble, they
can also be transported in ready to use form through doorways or in lifts without difficulty. Traditional mobile access towers are
also an option for any work at height that exceeds 2m. They can be tailored to fit awkward areas, such as stairs or narrow corridors and can be fitted with or without castors, depending on the job at hand. And for yet more flexible work at
height solutions, there are a variety of powered access products on the market which can be hired, although they should only be used after a thorough training programme has been undertaken by the operative because of the specialist nature of the equipment. Users can choose from scissor lifts, boom lifts and aerial work platforms all of which have specific design features tailored to specific working at height applications. So the equipment is out there but
that in itself isn’t enough. When it comes to your employees, making the right equipment choice and knowing how to set up and use that equipment safely, it really is down to the training and advice that you give them. It is not enough to hope that employees will ‘pick up safety on the job’ - they need the right combination of appropriate knowledge, skills and practical experience to work safely at height or, be under the supervision of someone who does possess these skills. The right training will help ensure
that workers can identify safety hazards before they proceed with working from height. These can include judging the weather to be too wet or cold, making working
Facilities UK - Handbook 2010 - 11
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