Work at height – do a risk assessment

A lot of businesses potentially expose workers to the risk of falls from height. Some do this by the nature of their work (lightning protection systems inspection, window cleaning, etc) while others don’t realise that they are doing it. The picture below is an example of a task that may well involve work at height: replacing a lamp in a car parking area:

work at height lamp change

This sort of work needs a bit of planning. It is not sufficient to send someone out armed with a ladder to do this work. Maybe a scaffold tower or some form of MEWP? Getting there, but what about controlling vehicle movements in the car park, and so on. The point is, a risk assessment is required for all work at height.

Do we think a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks was carried out for the next two pictures? If so, were the control measures that were identified ever implemented?

What stops these guys from falling and becoming another HSE statistic?

Falls from height remains the most common cause of workplace fatality.

Some of the things that are seen for work at height can be ingenious (but that does not mean safe). The following picture was sent to me and I assume that this was in a domestic working environment, still: life is life.

work at height, domestic

We can help you with all of your risk assessment needs, including work at height.

We can provide you with work at height awareness training.