The Health and Safety Executive (“HSE”) recently reported that a specialist construction company has been fined £60,000 after a worker fell to his death from a church steeple in Birmingham.
David Clover, a steeplejack working on St Nicholas’ Church in Kings Norton, was sitting on a suspended bosun’s chair so he could work on the outside of the church spire, when he fell and sadly suffered fatal injuries.
After investigating, the HSE learned that the chair had no backup system to prevent falls. Providing Mr Clover with a harness to wear, which would have kept him supported from above if the chair tipped or failed, would have stopped Mr Clover falling.
Falls from height remain one of the biggest causes of fatalities and major injuries in the workplace. According to HSE statistics, 50 people died as a result of a fall from height in 2023/24 and falls in fact made up 50% of all fatal accidents involving workers in that same year.
Preventing work injuries
Whilst “working at height” can range from standing on a step ladder to being suspended 40m above the ground, the precautions employers need to take to protect their workers are not onerous. What is necessary is to ensure:
- The work is properly planned and supervised, and any risks associated with that task are properly assessed in advance;
- The correct equipment is used, with safety systems / back-ups as is appropriate;
- Suitable Personal Protective Equipment is both provided and worn (eg hard hats);
- The work is carried out by people who have been properly trained in that task and know exactly what precautions need to be taken to reduce the likelihood of any accidents.
Using the right equipment is key, especially where the height at which someone is working is considerable. Sometimes using the ‘right’ equipment might be more expensive (eg erecting a scaffold tower to access the roof on a tall building, rather than using a very long ladder), but the human consequences of using equipment that is not suitable for the job can be tragic, and the financial consequences considerable.
If a company genuinely cannot take steps that would completely avoid the possibility of a worker falling, they must instead make sure that if a fall does happen, the distance of the fall and its potential consequences are minimal. This is where harnesses, safety nets and support ropes may need to be used.
Leigh Woodham said “It does trouble me that in this day and age, when there is so much safety equipment available for use, some companies still take short cuts with their workers’ safety. It may have made a fascinating picture seeing workers on the Empire State building having their lunch 1000ft above the sidewalk, but work safety has fortunately come on in leaps and bounds since then. So why is it that when walking around town, I have seen roofers walking over skylight windows whilst cradling a stack of roof tiles in their arms, with no safety helmets, and not even a harness to stop them falling if the glass shattered beneath their feet or there was a freak gust of wind?
Employees do of course also have a duty to look after themselves and be sensible when working from height, but at the end of the day it is the good working practices of both the employer and the worker that together keep people safe.”
How we can help
If you have suffered a life changing injury at work which you believe was preventable, we may be able to help you. You may have been aware of shortcuts being taken in health and safety at work, or you might not consider that what happened to you was preventable, but we have decades of experience assessing accidents to understand if they could have been prevented and if someone’s actions (or lack of action) caused them.
To have a free confidential discussion with Leigh or a member of his team, call us on 0800 044 8488 or fill in our contact form so we can call you back at a time convenient for you.
