HSE Press Relaease: E036:04 - 24 March 2004
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is repeating its 'designer initiative' during April 2004 in a bid to reduce the number of falls from height accidents in the construction industry. The initiative focuses on bringing designers onto the construction sites where their designs are being built.
HSE construction inspectors in Scotland and the North of England will be meeting designers and planning supervisors at a range of construction sites to examine ways in which design issues influence workers' safety, both during the construction and future maintenance of a building.
Designers will be given the opportunity to explain what they have done during the design stage to reduce the risks from work at height for those working at these sites.
The previous initiative in March 2003 revealed that many designers lacked knowledge of their legal duties to reduce construction risks through good design. Designers have had a legal duty to design risk out where practicable since the introduction of the Construction (Design & Management) Regulations (CDM) in 1994.
Work at height continues to be the most significant cause of fatal accidents on construction sites in the UK, responsible for around 40% of all deaths. Many designers have invested considerable resource and innovation in addressing this issue, but unfortunately many others are still failing to address this area of their work.
HSE hope this year's initiative will show a marked improvement on the results of the 2003 exercise, when only one third of designers seen were considered by inspectors to have sufficient knowledge of CDM to allow them to adequately fulfil their duties.
This inspection year (04/05), HSE will be taking appropriate enforcement action to secure improvements from designers who fail to meet minimum legal standards.
1. In 2002/03, 33 construction workers died and many thousands more suffered a serious injury as a result of a fall from height in the workplace. Falls from height are the most common cause of fatal injury and the second most common cause of major injury to employees.
2. During the previous initiative in 2003, 123 projects were visited. Results of this initiative were previously reported in HSE press release E066:03 (2nd May 2003) http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2003/e03066.htm
3. The following examples are extracts from the 2003 initiative report, which can be viewed on the construction pages of the HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk/construction/designers/intervention
One designer claimed that the meeting was very challenging, he was being asked to justify his designs for the first time, and he had not previously thought about his design input as part of the construction process.
The designer of a project to remove and replace the parapet wall of a five-arch masonry road bridge (which had to remain open to vehicles and pedestrians during the contract) had failed to consider how pedestrian safety could be maintained once the parapet wall had been removed, and how the risks of workers falling over the unprotected bridge edge could be prevented during the breaking out of the footway pavement. He stated that these issues were the responsibility of the principal contractor and not the designer.
One designer claimed that school windows never got cleaned: he had not considered how they could be cleaned safely.
4. The Health and Safety Commission has included 'Falls from Height' and 'Construction' in its eight Priority Programmes chosen to meet the Revitalising targets for the reduction in injury rates in the workplace.
5. The construction industry has committed to a step change in performance. This was demonstrated through setting challenging Revitalising targets and adopting action plans at the Construction Safety Summit, 27 February 2001.
The construction industry set the following Revitalising targets
for improvement.
To reduce the:
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