Protect your workers from falls from height…or else
The HSE has delivered a warning to companies who fail to protect employees working at height – they will be held to account.
The warning follows a hearing on November 12th at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court where a company was found guilty of a breach of Regulation 6(3) & 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005. The company failed to take sufficient measures to prevent employees falling from a height, after a member of staff fell from a mezzanine floor.
The Company were fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £4,867 costs for the incident on 25th June 2008, when an employee fractured his skull and shoulder and sustained a number of fractured ribs when he fell 2.4 metres from a mezzanine floor. The employee was dismantling the mezzanine floor surface at the company’s premises
The company failed to ensure that the work was properly planned, or to take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent Mr Cole falling.
The HSE said:
“Falling from height continues to be one of the most common causes of fatal injury to workers, accounting for 58 fatalities in 2007/08 in Great Britain. More than half (59%) of deaths reported in the construction industry in 2007/08 were as a result of working at height. These incidents are easily preventable.”
Regulation 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: “Every employer shall ensured that work at height is properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out in a manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable safe.”
Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: “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.”
