H&S Precautions at Height

[Ali2580]

But he will be 18 in 4 weeks time so the world is then his shellfish :** laughs out loud **:

 

 

 

The event happens a day after my 18th birthday.

 

 

[kerry davies]

Have a good birthday. Still need to show competence and have someone assisting simply not necessarily in a supervisory role.

[Stutwo]

I was sent on LA working at height course just last month. To prove our ladder competency myself and 12 other long-term council employees had to put a 5-rung ladder against a wall, climb up 2 rungs and touch the ceiling where it meets the wall. I had to crouch on the ladder itself to avoid my head hitting the ceiling. The assessor watched each one of us do this before he would sign us off as passed.

 

Now I have a certificate.

[Ynot]

My ladder training was a little more advanced...

At 16 I was taught the right way to carry a 3-section ladder, place it correctly on the ground, lean it against a rather tall wooden pole, extend it to full working height, climb to the top then step up onto thin metal pegs then ascend further to the top of said pole and attach myself with a lean-back belt-harness.

 

Sadly they didn't give certificates in the dark ages...

 

Oh - and I still have a belt harness in my garage, though I suspect it'll NEVER get used in anger again!

[ramdram]

Ref the clueless epithet...I would say the folk who want you to prove your competence are anything but clueless.

 

You do a "course", therefore you are trained...you make a cockup, they take a backward step and show the proof you were trained...ergo you were taught to know better so it HAS to be YOUR fault.

 

Mewps or tallescopes; you get trained and advised on the "correct way of working" as per MI and subsequently endorsed by H&S...again, you are involved in an incident...again, it's your fault.

 

For all "you" know the employers' insurers make training a condition of cover. If you were not trained on a particular piece of kit then why were you using it anyway?

 

If you were trained and have an accident then you must have not followed the drill.

 

And, if your Union is involved in joint H&S training then they will not be very happy if you ignored what you were taught. I've had to defend some colleagues...right up to where I find they have been issued with safety shoes or boots (with signed receipts) yet did not wear them. The defence I had planned instantly got turned into a plea for clemency...which usually meant returning the favour later.

 

[And for all the "old timers" who take the "I've been doing this job for twenty five years (with my head in the sand)", the usual response from the younger, far, far brighter element where I used to work was, "Nope, you've done the job for one year, twenty five times".

[kerry davies]

I believe "clueless" refers to the sort of tick-box training which Stutwo got his piece of Andrex for. It does not cover the backsides of the employer who MUST ensure the competence of staff. Even PASMA says competence is "sufficient professional or technical training, knowledge, actual experience, and authority" and CDM regs, as an example, say " possession of a CSCS card is not sufficient to ensure competence".

 

It isn't the insurer that insists on training/competence but the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regs 1999 reinforcing all the other H&S laws. Two minutes up two steps will not suffice.

 

The biggest gripe that I have, and Paul appears to agree, is the clueless nature of many LA officers who have a vague comprehension of H&S and give safe practice a very bad name indeed. They may follow the letter of the law as far as they can read but have no clue as to the spirit.

 

In 20 years climbing and supervising climbers for PO/BT I only had to deal with one fall from height, a MEWP accident which killed a 34 year old father of three and taught me a few vital things.

1) Less than three metres is plenty high enough.

2) Check the kit and don't use it if it isn't safe.

3) Do not take short cuts, failure to follow the SSoW could kill you.

4) One death is too many. His kids are older than Ali now, think on.

[Junior8]

Are you an employee while doing this work?

[Ynot]

[And for all the "old timers" who take the "I've been doing this job for twenty five years (with my head in the sand)", the usual response from the younger, far, far brighter element where I used to work was, "Nope, you've done the job for one year, twenty five times".

I'm not entirely sure where this comment is aimed - excuse me for maybe being dense.

 

However, in defense of those of us who HAVE been climbing SAFELY for (actually) 33 years (in my case) as I mentioned there was no such thing (as far as I'm aware) as a certificate for ladder climbing in the old days. You were taught - properly - and you in turn may - by example - have taught others. Yes, there was training, and you probably got something to say you'd attended it, but nothing that could be waved in the air to say 'I'm certified'.

What I will say is that my industry (the day job) has pretty much been at the front of what I'd call proper H & S dictats for many a year. We had compulsory safety films that would curdle your blood, safety handbooks for everything from climbing to roadworks guarding to lifting & handling. It was all part of the overall job.

 

These days, yes, there are probably certs for everything with a risk attached, though at work I seldom do anything more dangerous than turn on the laptop!

 

But I still climb regularly (and still safely) at the theatres I work with.

[kerry davies]

Then as an employee and now, as a self-employed person, I am both employer and employed.

 

Besides all other duty of care I have one specifically to myself as an employee, wierd but true. Technically speaking a self-employed person failing to train himself adequately in H&S could be prosecuted even after suffering somewhat tragic consequences.

http://www.building.co.uk/news/rns-construction-fined-%C2%A38k-over-death-of-owner/3144857.article

 

Is that what you meant, Junior?

 

Ynot, the reason I was given that I could not get any of my records at "retirement" was that of having signed the Official Secrets Act. They would confirm I had been an employee for X years ending up at X grade and nothing more. My BT training was what should be the standard everywhere but sadly is not. Considering HASAWA was highly based on PO/BT (civil service)standards explains why they were light years ahead of current PASMA/MEWP/WaH/you-name-it training.

[paulears]

The BT engineer (approaching retirement, he told me) was not allowed to stand on my garage flat roof - the simplest route for the cable, because he'd been on the new ladder course, but not the flat roof course, so he went all the way around using his ladder instead of a very safe walk across a nearly new flat roof, clipping at shoulder height to the brickwork. This is an example of how silly things are, because working from his ladder must be a greater risk than standing on a solid surface. BT work on paper qualifications, not years of experience - think how much wasted time and money there must be - especially (as he pointed out) when the training is given by somebody who is a new employee, who's been on a course himself, rather than somebody time served in the field.

[ramdram]

Ynot, the point was aimed at all the folk in (any) industry who had never kept up with their "professional development"...and rely on "that's the way we've always done it". We had a lot of ex mob blokes who had joined after the war and were extremely pleased to get an "indoor job with no heavy lifting". Theirs was a culture of the oldest knows best, and that any new blokes had to be put in their place was more important, to them, than teaching the new bods the job.

 

Seeing as I was the youngest member of our local branch committee I was "promoted" into being the very first safety rep ever on our station. This was in the days when such ideas were seen as a gross infringement on "workers' rights" by the workers and, before I was packed off to Wood Norton on a joint BBC/Beta training course, it was made clear by some of my unenlightened co-workers that "we" did not need a safety rep.

 

Curiously the tech maintenance manager was of the same opinion and seeing as he had been appointed the management liaison bod did not want more paperwork.

 

However the EIC (top bloke on station) knew which way his career should go and was very happy to do the whole H&S bit. It turned out from my course that we really were doing things more or less OK anyway and the only real "hazard" was the possibility of slipping on the damp floors following the cleaner's activities...easily rectified by a couple of those sandwich board signs. We had all been on safe lifting courses and some staff were trained up as fire marshals and first aiders anyway.

 

It was different matter entirely in our tech workshops, eg, various solvents were removed and test cables were obliged to be put away after use and not just left on the bench.

 

The worse incident observed was me nearly pulling a comms rx (about 80lbs) out of the rack when pulling myself up after tuning it. The EIC went ballistic when he read the safety report, compiled by the SME (shift supervisor), and appeared about 20mins later and publicly ballocked the maints bloke in front of the entire shift.

 

The excuse that this engineer never put the bolts back until he was sure the rx was working properly cut no ice at all.

 

Which is the reason for the comment...it's the blokes who won't be told that become the problem.

[Ynot]

The BT engineer (approaching retirement, he told me) was not allowed to stand on my garage flat roof - the simplest route for the cable, because he'd been on the new ladder course, but not the flat roof course, so he went all the way around using his ladder instead of a very safe walk across a nearly new flat roof,

Sadly that's the way the business (as with many others) has gon in recent years. In fact the whole country!

Instead of using common sense in all things employees are tied by the wrists on how to do jobs like that.

[kerry davies]

Spot on Tony, after getting rid of all of us Senior Techs and losing the skills they asked us to come back after a year. Guess what we all replied?????

 

My own flat roof working course was given by the top riggers from Madley. They were nearly all made redundant at privatisation as well.

[Ynot]

Oh, and of course (VERY much OT) we're not technicans now - we're "Team Members".

Technical Officer, Senior Tech, even Tech 2A and (God forbid) Trainee Technician Apprentice grades have all gone.

:(

 

 

[Seano]

- especially (as he pointed out) when the training is given by somebody who is a new employee, who's been on a course himself, rather than somebody time served in the field.

 

My last IPAF course (using the word pretty loosely) was with a trainer who'd previously been a diesel fitter at the plant hire place before re-training as a trainer. Other than 'training' people to drive cherry pickers, he'd never driven one in the course of a day's work in his life, and boy did it show.