Health And Safety When Working At Height
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Health and Safety Regulations
In today’s environment Organisations and individuals that fail to take responsibility for health and safety will be subject to criminal prosecution and/or civil action. In principal a duty of care exists and every effort must be made to ensure incidents and accidents are prevented. All employers have legal and moral obligations as well as financial reasons to ensure that they safeguard the health, safety and welfare of their employees , sub-contractors working on activities on their behalf and third parties that could be affected by their undertakings. This responsibility will not be reduced or avoided by ignorance or to coin a phrase “passing the buck” to someone else.
Examples are quoted below to highlight your potential exposure across the various pieces off relevant legislation:
The Health and Safety at work act 1974
Section 2 details the duties of an employer to an employee.
provision of necessary information, instruction, training and supervision.
Section 3 details the duties of an employer to non-employed persons
Contractors, visitors, members of the public.
Sections 7 & 8 detail the duties of employees
not to endanger themselves or others by their acts or omissions.
“Every employer shall ensure that work at height is properly planned appropriately supervised; and carried out in a manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable safe and that its planning includes the selection of work equipment…” and “Every employer shall ensure that any person in any activity involving work at height is competent to do so or, if being trained, is being supervised by a competent person” Working at height regulations 2005.
The updated CDM regulations place duties on clients, designers, contractors and planning supervisors who can contribute to the health and safety of a construction project . In 2007 changes were made to the regulations to simplify the existing system unifying CDM and the Construction (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1996 into a single package that takes in the work place as well as the construction site. Additional responsibility has been placed on architects to eliminate hazards and reduce risks during the design stage as far as is reasonably practicable. More emphasis has been placed on designer’s duties include the avoidance of risk to people through the full evolution of the building from: construction work - on going maintenance - using the structure as a place of work demolition & dismantling - others who may be affected by the above.
The Construction (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1996 are aimed at protecting the health, safety and welfare of everyone who carries out construction work and to other people who may be affected by the work. Employers, self-employed and those who control the way in which construction work is carried out are the main duty-holders under these Regulations. Employees also have duties to carry out their own work in a safe way and everyone doing construction work has a duty to cooperate with others on matters of health and safety and to report any defects to those in control.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 puts a duty on employers to “make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of his employees whilst they are at work.” Necessary steps to minimise the risk of injury or harm to his employee’s means “Employees shall use any equipment or safety device provided by their employer in accordance with any training or instructions given by the employer.” It also outlines the employee’s responsibility to “inform their employer or work colleagues of any work situation which they reasonably consider represents a serious and immediate danger to health and safety.”
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulation (PUWER) puts a responsibility on to the employer to provide equipment that is fit-for-purpose and necessary training were and supervision. This is particularly relevant when fall protection equipment has been installed at a property and the employer / property owner / tenant fails to have the equipment routinely maintained and certified and/or permits its use by non-competent individuals.
The Personal Protective Equipment at work Regulations 1992 places a duty on every employer to “ensure that suitable PPE is provided for his employees who may be exposed to a risk to their health or safety while at work……”. Employees must “use any PPE provided to him in accordance both with any training in the use of the PPE concerned which has been received by him and the instructions respecting that use which have been provided to him….”.
The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment regulations 1998 (LOLER) govern the minimum requirements for the use of work equipment by workers at work and impose duties in respect of those requirements on persons having control of lifting equipment and persons who use, supervise or manage the use of lifting equipment .
To add to this , Abseil equipment must be installed, used, inspected and maintained in accordance with the requirements of LOLER.
