As with most things that can pose a danger to your health, there are specific regulations for people who have to work at height. These regulations are there for your employer to make sure that any activities you are instructed to undertake that involve working at height do not pose a danger to you.
The applicable regulation is The Work at Height Regulations 2005. To cite some of the important sections of the regulations:
Organisation and Planning
4.—(1) Every employer shall ensure that work at height is—
(a)properly planned;
(b)appropriately supervised; and
(c)carried out in a manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable safe, and that its planning includes the selection of work equipment in accordance with regulation 7.
(3) Every employer shall ensure that work at height is carried out only when the weather conditions do not jeopardise the health or safety of persons involved in the work.
This part of the regulations place are an important duty on your employer to make sure that any tasks you are instructed to carry out that involve working at height do not pose a danger to you. This particular section above is the important bit to show that the duty is directly on your employer.
Competence
5 – Every employer shall ensure that no person engages in any activity, including organisation, planning and supervision, in relation to work at height or work equipment for use in such work unless he is competent to do so or, if being trained, is being supervised by a competent person.
This, as an addition to the first section discussed above, places the extra duty on your employer to make sure that working at height activities are properly organised and carried out. Unless a person has the proper qualifications or knowledge to know how to make sure that any working at height activities are accomplished safely, you are probably at risk.
Avoidance of risks from work at height
6 – (3) 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.
(5) Where the measures taken under paragraph (4) do not eliminate the risk of a fall occurring, every employer shall—
(a)so far as is reasonably practicable, provide sufficient work equipment to minimise—
(i)the distance and consequences; or
(ii)where it is not reasonably practicable to minimise the distance, the consequences,
of a fall; and
In addition to the duty that your employer has, this section above places the very important duty on your employer to make sure that, where a working at height task cannot be eliminated, equipment is provided to prevent a fall causing an injury. A classic example would be a harness. If you are instructed to work at a height of say 20ft where there are no side railings and therefore you are at risk of falling, I’d suggest you need a harness. And jumping back to the regulation above about training and instruction, you need to be competent to know how to fit a harness. It may sound like a fairly easy thing to do, but a proper harness needs to be properly fitted to maximise it’s possibly life saving properties.
Can You Claim?
The all important question – if you fall from a height at work, can you make a claim for compensation? Well if your employer has breached any of the regulations above, you should have a claim. Give us a call on our free claims helpline and we can assess the merits of your case over the phone.
