March 19, 2003—The UKs Health and Safety Executive is planning to launch a new campaign aimed at preventing falls, especially from height in a construction setting. Inspectors are to meet designers and planning supervisors initially in Scotland and the north of England.
Said construction inspector Nic Rigby: “Work at height continues to be the most significant cause of fatal accidents on construction sites in the UK. Since the Construction (Design & Management) Regulations were introduced in 1994, designers have had legal duties to design risk out where reasonably practicable.”
So far, the HSE’s construction inspectors have scheduled over 130 appointments with designers and planning supervisors to talk about the way that design issues impinge on site safety and on the subsequent safety of maintenance workers during the life of a structure.
Planning supervisors and designers will be given the opportunity to demonstrate what they have done during the design stage to reduce the risk from work at height. HSE inspectors will be looking for examples where innovative solutions have been used by designers to address work at height problems, in the hope that these can be shared with the wider design sector.
In the past five years, 437 people have been killed on construction sites in the UK. Of those, 225 were killed as a result of a fall from height, about one person every week on average, Rigby said.
-Elliott Chase
Reprinted with permission; copyright 2003 i-FM
