Companies Still Failing on Falls

by Sue Chappell

Although it is nearly two years since the Work at Height Regulations came into force, there are still more than 3,000 major injuries each year caused by a fall from height. Last month, the Health & Safety Executive issued a warning to Cumbrian firms after they successfully prosecuted a Durham firm for breaching the Act. Joiner, Anthony Crack had sustained serious injuries in a preventable fall at a site they were working on near Carlisle. He was working above an open stairwell.

As well as a £1,500 fine and £1,559 costs, the firm could also be facing the prospect of a personal injury claim from Mr Crack.
There has been an overall decrease in the number of major injuries caused by falling from a height in the last 10 years, but the construction industry continues to be the biggest culprit for serious falls from a height - more than half of fatalities from such falls occur here.

This legislation isn't just for heavy industries like construction and manufacturing; the largest number of falls continue to be in the service industries and in 2004/5 those in teaching professions were just as likely to sustain a major injury as someone working in agriculture. 

The Work at Height Regulations 2005 came into force on 6 April 2005.  These Regulations replaced all the earlier Regulations about working at height. They place duties on employers, the self-employed and any person who controls the work of others, for example principal contractors (as in the local case mentioned above) and building owners who contract others to do work at height.

"Work at height" means work in any place, including a place at or below ground level, where a person could be injured if they fell from that place. It also includes the means of obtaining access to, or a way out from, such a place while at work (except by a staircase in a permanent workplace).

This is a very broad definition.  It certainly includes working on roofs, ladders and platforms.  It would also include working at ground level next to a hole or excavation.  According to the HSE, the Regulations do not apply to people walking up and down a staircase in an office, working on the upper floors of an office block or portacabin.

If you owe duties to people working at height, what are you required to do by the Regulations?  The overriding principle is that you must take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance likely to cause personal injury.  You must therefore:

a. Avoid work at height where possible.
b. If working at height cannot be avoided, use work equipment or other measures to prevent falls.
c. Where the risk of a fall cannot be removed entirely, use work equipment or other measures to reduce the risk of injury should the fall occur.

Risk assessments should now be a regular part of a business' health and safety management. Under these Regulations businesses must take account of risk assessment when considering work at height.  You must identify what the hazard is and the degree of risk present.  This then allows you to take the necessary precautions to prevent injury occurring.

Further, the Regulations require you to ensure that:

a. All work at height is properly planned and organised.
b. All work at height takes account of weather conditions.
c. Those working at height are trained and competent.
d. The place where work at height is carried out is safe.
e. The equipment for work at height is appropriately inspected.
f. The risks from fragile surfaces are properly controlled.
g. The risks from falling objects are properly controlled.

The Regulations specifically require you to ensure that work at height is properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out in a manner that is as safe as reasonably practicable. You must therefore consider all of the factors that may influence safety, including the workplace itself, the equipment used and the weather conditions in which people will be working.  Most importantly of all, you must assess the people actually doing the work. Are they properly trained? If they are in the process of being trained, are they properly supervised?

It is important that training is provided not just in general safety, but also in respect of any particular work equipment that is being used.  For example, if a cherry-picker or scissor lift is appropriate, the operator must be properly trained in its use. 

The HSE suggest that where employees regularly carry out work at height, such as roofers, it may be necessary for them to attend a formal training course on safe working at height rather than simply relying on "on the job" training.

You must be very careful when selecting equipment for working at height.  The Regulations require you to give "collective protection measures" priority over "personal protection measures".  That is to say, you should use equipment that protects people generally (such as guardrails and toe boards) rather than rely solely on equipment that protects only an individual, such as a safety harness.

The Schedules to the Regulations set out detailed requirements regarding particular types of work equipment, including provisions for guardrails, toe boards, barriers and similar collective means of protection. Specific guidance is also given on the use of working platforms and scaffolding. You should familiarise yourself with these details if such equipment is to be used.  Note, for example, that guardrails must now be at least 950mm above the edge rather than the previous requirement of 910mm.

Have ladders been banned?  The short answer is no. However, you must give very careful consideration as to their use.  Schedule 6 of the Regulations states that ladders should be used only if the risk assessment demonstrates that the use of more suitable work equipment is not justified because of the low risk and the short duration of use, or existing features on site which you cannot alter. You should therefore use ladders only where other more suitable work equipment (e.g. tower scaffolds, cherry-pickers etc) is inappropriate.  Where ladders and stepladders are to be used you should restrict this to light work of short duration. Ladders are still the most commonly cited equipment in major injuries.

Window cleaners seem to have embraced the Regulations as, since their introduction, there has been a massive upsurge in those using so-called "High Level Cleaning Methods", thus eliminating the use of ladders.

Every employer should be aware of the relevance of these Regulations to their business. An office worker trying to open an inaccessible window or a sales assistant attempting to reach high stock are both at risk of a serious fall - it may be surprising but two thirds of major injuries were caused by falls from a height of less than two metres.

Sue Chappell is a personal injury lawyer at Burnetts in Carlisle, Cumbria who specialises in claims for injured workers. For further information about the Work at Height Regulations, visit www.hse.gov.uk or call Sue Chappell on 01228 552222.

Feb 2007