Building firm in court after pupil injured on work experience

Date:

15 March 2011

Release No:

YH/48 /11

A Sheffield building company has been fined after a schoolboy on work experience fell 2.4 metres from a ladder.

The 15-year-old was one of two students from a school, completing a placement with Alan Fleischer Builders Ltd in March 2010. He was working on a project in West Street, Sheffield, converting an upstairs restaurant into flats and extending upwards into newly-created floors.

During the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution today (15th), Sheffield Magistrates' Court heard that although the school's work placement organisation had carried out a safety assessment on the building firm, it had not taken place on the site where the incident happened.

The ladder from which the student fell

The student was working on the third floor, which was still under construction and only accessible by ladder. As he climbed down the ladder with a bucket in his hand, he fell 2.4metres landing on the floor.

Initially he carried on working but began to feel ill and was taken home. He later went to hospital and although he suffered bruising to his left side, he was discharged.

HSE said the work placement assessment allowed students to carry out general labouring duties but they were not expected to work at height. After the incident, students were stopped from returning to the site and all future placements to the company were suspended.

Alan Fleischer Builders Ltd, of Dinnington, was fined £1,500 with £1,320 in costs after pleading guilty to a charge of failing to ensure the safety of its employees.

HSE Inspector Medani Close said:

"Construction sites can be dangerous places to work. Because of inexperience, young people need special consideration to protect them from risks, particularly those present when working at height, which are well-known in the industry. The employers' risk assessment should have taken all this into account.

"This young student was lucky not to have suffered worse injuries from his fall. If the defendants had planned the project better, the stairs would have been installed at an early stage and workers would not have needed to use a ladder at all."

Falls from height remain the most common cause of workplace fatality. In 2008/09 there were 35 fatalities, 4,654 major injuries and a further 7,065 injuries that caused the injured person to be off work for over three days or more, due to a fall from height. More information on preventing falls in the workplace is available at: www.hse.gov.uk/falls.

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Section 2(1) of the Health &Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states that: "...it shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."
3. Further information on falls and trips in the construction industry http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/campaigns/fallstrips/index.htm

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