HIGH STANDARDS FOR LOW LEVEL ACCESS
The Prefabricated Access Suppliers and Manufacturers Association (PASMA) created a Publicly Available Specification to ensure the safety of operatives working at height.
Following publication of the Work at Height Regulations in 2005 with its hierarchy of measures – Avoid, Prevent, Mitigate – some would say a golden age of access product development began.
Amongst other things, the new regulations generated a demand for low level work platforms – products with side protection (guardrails) to prevent falls and intended for individual use as an alternative to step ladders. These work platforms (commonly referred to as pulpits or podiums) were quickly developed to meet that demand and came into the market thick and fast.
“The road to
standardisation is not always a speedy or simple one.”
Podiums have a wide range of applications across many industry sectors, including cleaning and facilities management where their versatility, portability and ease-of- use make them an invaluable piece of access equipment for a myriad of different jobs: from routine cleaning and maintenance to specific tasks such as repairing light fittings, erecting signs and painting and decorating. They can be found in hospitals, schools, offices and shopping centres. The list is almost endless.
For others, the introduction of the Work at Height Regulations heralded not a golden age, but a difficult and demanding one. Reports of podiums overturning and failing, resulting in injury, came to PASMA’s attention. When products are developed rapidly in the absence of an applicable product design standard, there is no mechanism for sharing good practice around design, testing and verification,
34 | WORKING AT HEIGHT
which can, and did, result in dire and unforeseen consequences. It was so problematic that the Ministry of Work and Pensions went the distance and banned certain products on their sites.
While most of the products that came onto the market did provide a safe solution to low level access, it was clear that certain aspects of some products could be improved by adherence to relevant and specific design criteria.
THE FAST TRACK The problem then led to the question: how do we help to fix this, and how do we fix it fast? The road to standardisation is not always a speedy or simple one. In practice, it can take years to reach a consensus on the content and follow the required procedures for approval, as the British Standards Institution (BSI) will testify.
The solution? A Publicly Available Specification (PAS).
The process of creating a PAS enables rapid development of a specification to fulfil an immediate need to industry. And for the work at height industry, that certainly rang true. In 2010, PASMA sponsored ‘PAS 250 Low- level work platform with one working platform with side protection for use by one person with a maximum working platform height of less than 2.5m – Specification’ – quite a mouthful, but it must be clear what’s inside the box. Contrary to popular belief, the acronym PAS is not short for PASMA and the number 250 has nothing to do with the maximum platform height of 2.5 m – that really was just a coincidence.
The creation of PAS 250 was not unlike the process for standardisation – it followed a strict procedure of drafting and review stages, consultations and sign-offs. As the sponsor for the project, PASMA and its technical committee were heavily
involved from the early stages of research to the final draft. However, it was not PASMA alone – the draft was developed and delivered under the guidance of a steering group of experts and representatives from The Association of British Certification Bodies, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Hire Association Europe, the Ladder Association and the UK Contractors Group.
In 2012 PAS 250 was published and afterwards, new podiums that met its design criteria for function, strength and stability and were much safer than their predecessors, became available.
A NEW STANDARD A PAS, like any other standard, must be reviewed at set intervals to ensure that it remains relevant. At the two year review mark, a PAS can be withdrawn, continued or converted to a full British Standard.
PAS 250 set the standard so, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Because when something isn’t broken, it doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon. PASMA, designers, the HSE and user groups had all gathered two years of research and knowledge on the use and misuse of podiums, which gave new understanding and insight to improve the design criteria even further.
Additionally, a British standard is often seen to be more authoritative and more influential than a PAS, so converting PAS 250 into a full British Standard would cement it as the accepted and recognised criteria for podiums.
At the end of 2016, four years after PAS 250 was first published, it became BS 8620.
WHAT NEXT? With PAS 250 now converted to BS 8620, safety and performance criteria have been enhanced with a dimensional change to side protection and modifications to specific tests.
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