The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has recently urged employers to ensure proper barricading is in place to protect the employees when they are working at heights. This caution has come after a 2008 accident in which an employee working at Barnfields Industrial Estate in Staffordshire fell off the first floor of a building and suffered serious injuries due to the absence of adequate safety measures.
Investigations on the incident revealed that the employee had been working with a power saw on the first floor of a building where the walls had been removed and a horizontal steel girder had been placed around the sides. However, the girder had not been properly installed, and the worker fell through a gap in the girder and sustained serious injuries. He had to be hospitalised for three weeks after three weeks of complete sedation. At one stage, the doctors suspected his injuries were fatal.
Newcastle-under-Lyme Magistrates Court ordered the employer G Baskerville Ltd to pay 8000 pounds as fine and 6000 pounds as costs after the company pleaded guilty to breach of provisions of the Health and safety at Work Act 1974.
HSE inspector Guy Dale categorically stated that it is imperative that employers construct barriers where their workers are required to work at heights in order to prevent them from falling. In the current case, he was of the opinion that the steel girders did not offer any protection against such falls, as there were many gaps in between. He added that the inadequate girder could have actually resulted in more accidents than one.
Companies need to be sure that they are giving the correct instructions to employees with regard to health and safety issues – click on NEBOSH Certificate, for information on the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Safety and Health qualification; designed to help those with health and safety responsibilities to carry out their duties at work more effectively and to protect the organisations for which they work.