HSE Warns Construction Companies To Take The Danger Of Working At Height Seriously, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 10 Dec 2007 - 4:00 PDT

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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has warned construction companies to take the safety of their employees working at height seriously. The warning follows HSE's prosecution of a Liverpool construction company for failing to implement safe systems of work for working at height after repeated warnings.

Maghull Construction Company Ltd of Switch House, Northern Perimeter Road, Bootle was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay £1,908 costs after pleading guilty of breaching regulation 6(3) and 12(4) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 at Southport Magistrates court.

On August 2006 after a complaint from a member of the public, an HSE inspector visited a Maghull Construction site. The inspector found unsafe work at height practices including inadequate edge protection and missing guardrails and toe boards. They served a Prohibition Notice which stopped work near open edges until suitable measures to prevent falls were in place. When the inspector revisited the site on 2 November she discovered similar problems and a second Prohibition Notice was served.

HSE Inspector Sarah Wadham said: "This company placed its employees at risk by not taking reasonable precautions to prevent accidents while working at height. After visiting the site I had such concerns about the dangers that I issued a Prohibition Notice to ensure the company met their responsibilities for the health and safety of their workers.

"Despite receiving written assurances that action had been taken to make the site safe, when I revisited it I again found serious breaches of health and safety practices and the company's own guidelines

"Falls from heights remain the most common kind of accident causing fatal injuries. A risk assessment should always be carried out, the work should be carefully planned and carried out be competent people."

Notes:

1. Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 says:

Where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury.

2. Regulation 12 (4) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 says:

Every employer shall ensure that a working platform -
a. used for construction work; and
b. from which a person could fall 2 metres or more,

is not used in any position unless it has been inspected in that position or, in the case of a mobile working platform, inspected on the site, within the previous 7 days.

3. Information on falls from height can be found here.

http://www.hse.gov.uk