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Keep slips, trips and falls in mind to create a safer workplace

Slips, trips and falls in the facilities management sector can have devastating consequences. At their most extreme, they can result in death and by their very nature, injuries to workers in this sector have the potential to be life changing, not only affecting the people themselves, but also impacting upon their families.

Falls from height remain one of the most common causes of fatalities and major injury in the workplace. In 2008/09 falls from height resulted in 35 fatalities and more than 4000 major injuries.
In addition to the significant human cost of all these incidents, there is also the cost to business and society. Slips trips and falls in the workplace cost British society around £800m last year? costs at a time when both businesses and individuals are struggling financially following the recession and costs that could have been avoided if improved health and safety measures were put in place.
The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) ‘Shattered Lives’ campaign aims to reduce unnecessary slip, trip and fall incidents in the workplace by encouraging employers to do more to manage these risks by taking simple, often cost effective, measures.

As part of the campaign, HSE has developed a new campaign website, including new case studies, and two etools; the Slips and Trips E-learning Package (STEP) and the Work at height Access Equipment Information Toolkit (WAIT).
Simple measures and best practice
Due to the nature of the work, facilities management workers are presented daily with a number of safety challenges – yet many of the more common slip, trip and fall risks can be easily mitigated with the right health and safety measures in place.

The simplest, yet often most effective method of minimising falls from height is to keep the site in good order and work areas as tidy as possible whilst work is being carried out. There should be separate pedestrian and vehicle traffic routes on site and these should be level, stoned up if muddy, and gritted when icy. Ensuring there are designated storage areas will also contribute significantly to keeping a site in order; as will clear arrangements for the removal of waste and a reporting system for any order problems which may occur.
Making small, simple changes during bad weather can make sites significantly safer for workers. In icy, windy or wet conditions, ensure that work at height is not carried out if it is likely to compromise the health and safety of workers. Where possible, access equipment should not be used in wet weather; and it is important to check the manufacturer’s instructions for specific advice. Moreover, saturated or uneven surfaces can compromise stability of access equipment – workers should always check that the surface is able to bear the load placed on it.

To safeguard workers against falls from scaffolding, ensure that scaffold platforms have suitable edge protection (in the form of double guardrails and toe boards at every edge) to prevent people and materials from falling.
Working platforms should also be fully boarded, with no gaps through which a person could fall and scaffolding should be regularly inspected. Overlapping of scaffold boards should be avoided to prevent people tripping and falling over the uneven surface. Effective barriers or warning notices should be in place to stop people using incomplete scaffolding. If anything is out of place or damaged, bosses should advise workers to report it immediately – a simple yet effective way of keeping on top of health and safety.
Working on roofs and mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs) can also present fall risks. To prevent falls from roofs, make sure there is always a safe route onto the roof, for example, by using a general access scaffold with secured ladder or stair tower. Always ensure there is edge protection to all elevations to prevent people or materials falling and avoid tiling work in wet or icy weather.

When using a Mobile Elevated Work Platform (MEWP), all work should be properly planned out, ensuring that the correct MEWP has been chosen for the job and the operator is fully trained. The MEWP should have an emergency stop at ground level and the work platform should have suitable barriers e.g. guard rails and toe boards. Also, wearing personal fall protection e.g. harnesses and short work-restraint lanyards should be considered when using a boom-type MEWP.

Getting the Know-How

Effective training in health and safety at the start of a utilities management career will embed good practice and awareness of risks. This will go a long way towards improving safety across the industry.
To help ensure this happens, the National Construction College (NCC), which is the largest construction training provider in Europe, provides a range of training to more than 30,000 learners each year across its seven sites. Health and safety is a key part of the training delivered by the College, which equips both new students and those already working within the industry with the ability to recognise dangers in the workplace and know how best to avoid them.

Meanwhile, to combat preventable falls from height – as well as slips and trips – the HSE offers free e-learning tools; including the Work at height Access Equipment Information Toolkit (WAIT) at www.hse.gov.uk/shatteredlives.
WAIT gives occasional users of access equipment, practical advice and guidance on the factors to consider when selecting access equipment for planned work at height. It also gives guidance on how to work at height safely, plus useful information on some of the different types of access equipment available.
Putting the Measures into Action

NG Bailey, one of the UK’s leading buildings and facilities management service providers, has been developing installation techniques and strategies to reduce the risks associated with working at height.
In the four years the company has been working on the St Helens and Knowsley PFI Hospitals scheme there have been no such incidents despite the size and complexity of the project. This can be attributed to a new way of working involving Off-Site Manufacturing (OSM) techniques.

To manage the risks posed by the significant amount of mechanical and electrical installation work that was needed at height, the associated manual handling issues and the potential for slips, trips and falls, the project team looked at many different options and decided upon a modular system.
NG Bailey designed a system whereby sections of cable containment and pipe work are assembled together with their associated support systems in a box frame. These modules are then fitted with the aid of mechanical straddle stackers to lift and support them whilst they are being fixed to the structure of the building. Work is then undertaken to connect the services on these modular segments together and install the associated wiring onto the pre-fitted cable containment systems.

The benefit of this type of module system is that it eliminates the need for workers to install individual components to the building structure thereby reducing the need for many repeated manual handling operations. The overall result was that the workers were able to dramatically reduce the time spent working at height and, therefore, greatly reduce all associated risks.
David Lynch, Safety Health Environment and Quality manager for NG Bailey, said: “The box frame module concept totally changed the way we worked at height on the project making it far safer for all concerned as well as increasing the workers’ productivity. The fact that there have been no incidents relating to working at height demonstrates the success of using an OSM technique.”

By putting these simple and cost-effective measures in place, NG Bailey were able to significantly reduce slip, trip and fall incidents.

This press release /article submitted to Safety43 by Qube magazine www.qubeonline.co.uk To subscribe to Qube magazine contact Nigel Clark on Tel: 0845 388 0281 Clarke Design & Media Ltd, Wisteria House, Stump Cross Lane, Swineshead, Boston PE20 3JJ