HOW HSE AWARENESS WILL REDUCE UK FALLS FROM HEIGHT & SELF-EMPLOYED DEATHS?

Whilst the amounts have reduced a bit in the last 10 years, the construction industry makes up for most of the workplace injuries and deaths within the UK. In 2008/09 the industry discovered that more than 50 work-associated fatalities happened. Experienced traders and plant/machine operatives came in as two of the main contributing occupation groups for non-fatal injuries.

RIDDOR reports that in 2007/08 more than 19% of company workers and 48% of self-employed deaths were the consequence of falls from height. Falls from rooftops were named to be the major contributor to high falls, and scaffolding was primarily responsible for low falls. Ladders added to both heights are one of the greater usual examples of all fatal falls. Construction carried the most eminent part of falls overall as an industry with a thumping 8% or 317 falls from height. This is equated to an overage of 1-2% in all other industries.

Though loads of employers have carried out safety programmes between their single companies, it appears that the self-employed worker bears the highest risk of a fall from height. They are informed to the lowest degree on good safety procedures and are not likely to take the right safeguards as they are usually allowed to police themselves.

In addition, general neglect and lack of good sense are acting as a vast contribution to these figures. Excessively frequently an incident of accidental injury or fatality would have well been avoided if workers had merely considered the time to look at their actions beforehand. Studies have found workers on rooftops with not as much as a pair of trainers, badly made scaffolding, and the abuse of heavy machinery including a hideous event of a worker applying a crane bucket as an outsized bathing tub!

Whilst the last instance did cause a chuckle amongst those who saw the pictures, the realness is this vociferous neglect of safety, the wrong use of equipment, and the void of sound safety procedures has resulted in the loss of life, millions of missed work days, and lost profits.

It looks like there is a clear need to improve change and govern self-employed workers and the construction industry altogether as these seem to be two of the biggest fields of incidents. It may be a hard project nevertheless, as many self-employed workers are not even working with sound licensing and thus are fleeing under the noses of regulators. It would be in these events where those in charge of employing such workers take hard-and-fast safeguards to ensure that these workers are using the correct safety equipment and safety supplies and are sharing good safety procedures.

Regulators will also need to take a much closer look at both fields and find ways to help the self-employed in getting better communication. Maybe a wider public service effort ought to be carried out so that those who are working in these industries can be made mindful of the risks involved when they work without the correct safety equipment and procedures. After all, it is not just the worker who is in danger, but the general public too.