Falls from height FAQs

The Regulations apply to all work at height where there is risk of a fall that is liable to cause personal injury. They place duties on employers, the self-employed and any person who controls the work of others (such as facilities managers or building owners who may contract others to work at height).

As part of the Regulations, dutyholders must ensure:

• all work at height is properly planned and organised
• those involved in work at height are competent
• the risks from work at height are assessed, and appropriate work equipment is selected and used
• the risks of working on or near fragile surfaces are properly managed
• the equipment used for work at height is properly inspected and maintained

There is a simple hierarchy for managing work at height and selecting the appropriate access equipment.

Dutyholders must:

• avoid work at height where possible, for example doing the work from ground level
• use work equipment or other measures to prevent falls, where work at height cannot be avoided
• use work equipment or other measures to minimise the distance and consequences of potential falls, where the risk cannot be eliminated

For more information, see: The Work at Height Regulations 2005.

The Regulations do not ban the use of ladders. Ladders can be used for low-risk, short-duration work and where a risk assessment shows that other more suitable work equipment is not appropriate because of the location.

Schedule 6 of the Work at Height Regulations deals with the requirements for ladders. For more information on ladder safety, see: Safe use of ladders and stepladders.

The Regulations require that, for construction work, handrails have a minimum height of 950 mm, and that any gap between the top rail and any intermediate rail should not exceed 470 mm. The Regulations also require toe boards to be suitable and sufficient (for example, a toe board of a minimum 100 mm height would be acceptable).

For non-construction work, there are no prescriptive dimensions. However, guard rails, toe boards, barriers and other collective means of protection should be of sufficient dimension to ensure a person cannot fall through or over them.

In the absence of any standards, HSE operational guidance suggests that guard rail heights in non-construction activities should be a minimum of 950 mm. Any protection below this height should be justified on the basis of a risk assessment.

For buildings, factories, warehouses, offices, public buildings, retail premises etc, sufficient dimensions for guard rails or similar barriers will be achieved by complying with the Building Regulations – which require guard rails to be 1100 mm.

For plant, machinery, equipment etc, sufficient dimensions will be achieved by compliance with any relevant EN standard. For example, BS EN 14122-3:2001 (covering the safety of machinery access) specifies a top guard rail of 1100 mm; while the essential health and safety requirements of the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 1992 specify that such equipment is 'designed and constructed to avoid falls’.

The Work at Height Regulations 2005 have changed the meaning of working platforms, which were traditionally seen as fully-boarded platforms with handrails and toe boards. A working platform can now be virtually any surface from which work can be carried out, such as:

• a roof
• a floor
• a platform on a scaffold
• mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs)
• the treads of a stepladder

Collective control measures should always take priority over personal control measures. Collective measures protect more than one person at any one time, eg scaffolds, airbags, nets etc and they are usually passive (ie requiring no action by the user to work effectively).

Personal control measures rely upon personal protective equipment and only protect the user, eg fall-arrest harnesses. They are usually active (ie requiring the user to do something for them to work effectively, such as clipping a PPE lanyard onto an anchorage point at all times).

The Regulations require steps to be taken to prevent falls from any height where there is a risk of personal injury, so far as reasonably practicable, They require a sensible risk-based approach to preventing falls and you must take reasonable precautions, for example:

• ensuring that handrails to scaffolds and towers are provided and not deliberately removed for work below 2 m
• using edge protection on bandstands (for bricklayers)

However, it is important that a sensible and pragmatic approach is taken when managing the risk of low falls. Precautions should only be taken when the scope and duration of the work presents a risk of injury. If the risk is trivial, and it is not reasonably practical to take precautions, then no action needs to be taken apart from training and instruction.

If you are not sure that it is right to use a ladder, speak to your supervisor or the safety representative on site. Alternatively, you can access the Work at height Access equipment Information Toolkit (WAIT) as part of your risk assessment process.

WAIT is a free online toolkit containing advice and guidance aimed at people who occasionally need to work at height. This can help you select the right access equipment for the planned work.

For more information, see also:

• Safe use of ladders and stepladders
• Health and safety made simple: The basics for your business

Every time you use a ladder, you should do a pre-use check beforehand to make sure it is safe for use. The benefit of conducting a pre-use check is that they provide the opportunity to pick up any immediate / serious defects before they cause an accident. A pre-use check should be carried out by:

• the user
• at the beginning of the working day
• whenever something has changed, eg when the ladder is dropped or moved from a dirty area to a clean area, you should check the condition of the feet and rungs.

Top tips for ladder and stepladder safety can be found in: Safe use of ladders and stepladders.

HSE does not provide specific guidance on the subject of ladder-climbing techniques (ie whether the rung or stile should be held). However, some useful information can be found in:

• Code of practice – Progressing safety and best practice step by step.

If you are thinking of using a MEWP, consider the following questions:

• Height – How high is the job from the ground?
• Application – Do you have the appropriate MEWP for the job? (If you’re not sure, check with the hirer or manufacturer)
• Conditions – What are the ground conditions like? Is there a risk of the MEWP becoming unstable or overturning?
• Operators – Are the people using the MEWP trained, competent and fit to do so?
• Obstructions – Could the MEWP be caught on any protruding features or overhead hazards, eg steelwork, tree branches or power lines?
• Traffic – Is there passing traffic and, if so, what do you need to do to prevent collisions?
• Restraint – Do you need to use either work restraint (to prevent people climbing out of the MEWP) or a fall arrest system (which will stop a person hitting the ground if they fall out)? Allowing people to climb out of the basket is not normally recommended – do you need to do this as part of the job?
• Checks – Has the MEWP been examined, inspected and maintained as required by the manufacturer's instructions and have daily checks been carried out?

For more information, see:

• MEWPs: Good practice in pictures Preventing falls from boom-type mobile elevating work platforms
• MEWPs – Avoiding trapping / crushing injuries The selection and management of mobile elevating work platforms

For information and answers to common questions about scaffolding, see:

• Scaffolding
• Health and safety in the construction industry

Competency is a combination of the experience, knowledge and appropriate qualifications that enables a worker to identify both the risks arising from a situation and the measures needed to deal with them. Individuals working at height need to be trained in the selected system of work and any particular work equipment chosen. For example, if a MEWP is selected then the operator must be trained in its use; if nets are used then the net riggers must be trained in how to erect them safely. Managers should check that those doing the work are adequately trained.

Regulation 5 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 refers to competence and states that employers should ensure that people engaged in any work at height activity, or using work equipment for that purpose, are competent to do so.

Although ‘competence’ is not defined in the Regulations, HSE has worked with industry to clarify what this means and recommends the definition in Appendix 8 of the Regulations, which state:

‘A competent person is a person who can demonstrate that they have sufficient professional or technical training, knowledge, actual experience, and authority to enable them to: (1) carry out their assigned duties at the level of responsibility allocated to them (2) understand any potential hazards related to the work (or equipment) under consideration (3) detect any technical defects or omissions in that work (or equipment), recognise any implications for health and safety caused by those defects or omissions, and be able to specify a remedial action to mitigate those implications’.