Category Archives: Construction Health and Safety

Tips to Protect Workers that are Working In or Near Excavations

1. Undertake a thorough risk assessment to determine how anyone could be hurt when working with excavations. Consider how and when a collapse could occur, or how someone could fall in, for example. Think about the underground cables (such as electricity) that could be in the area.
2. Support the sides of the excavation properly, and install barriers and covers when work finishes for the day or halts so that no one can fall in. Ensure good levels of lighting around the excavation, especially at night and in the winter months.
3. Develop and implement a safe system of work for workers to follow, which includes ensuring the excavation is properly boarded, and that it is dug to the correct depth. Ensure workers know the location of any underground cables before starting work.
4. Train workers on the dangers of working in or near excavations.
5. Supervise all work activities and ensure that you have a means of providing an emergency evacuation if someone should become injured in an excavation.

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A fall from height is one of the most common reasons for a workplace fatality – be sure to take the time today to check that everyone on your site is protected from falling into pits and other work spaces.

1. Do a risk assessment to determine where your fall from height hazards exist. Think about steps, pits, holes and other open areas, and how people could fall into them when working on or near them. Install guard rails and barriers, and hand-holds on stairs.
2. Mark the edges of all pits and level changes with bright paint. Cover all open pits with boards that are secured down to prevent them moving. Check that coverings can take the weight of anything intended to be put on it.
3. Ensure good levels of lighting at all times, both inside and outside buildings. Highlight areas where people could fall with signage and prevent unauthorised access. Escort visitors at all times to prevent them wandering into dangerous areas.
4. Discuss falls from height with workers on induction, and at regular intervals such as during toolbox talks. Supervise worker activities and undertake regular inspections of work areas to ensure that the controls identified in risk assessments relating to falls are being implemented and used correctly.
5. Look at ways of preventing workers from walking backwards – for example, when guiding vehicles or plant into inspection areas – by avoiding the need for vehicles to reverse. Use designated one-way routes where possible.

Contact Walker Health and Safety Services Limited should you require assistance.

Accident can be prevented, if the correct procedures are in place . Check today that your workers are protected when working at height.

Tips to Help Prevent Work at Height Accidents

1. Undertake a risk assessment to work out the hazards associated with each task involving work at height. Determine how workers could fall, be struck or knocked over, and how items could fall from above onto workers and others at ground level.
2. Whenever possible, avoid the need for working at height by completing the work from ground level, such as by using extendable tools and equipment. If this cannot be done, think about how best to prevent a fall from happening, for example by the use of edge protection and worker restraint systems. If the risk still remains, look to minimise the distance someone could fall by using safety nets or similar.
3. Segregate vehicles from work at height activities by using fixed barriers. Ensure that activities are co-ordinated and that vehicles operate at a different time to the work at height activity if there is a risk of collision or contact.
4. Check you have planned the work properly and that there is a safe system of work in place for workers to follow. Ensure the work at height is adequately supervised by a competent person with knowledge of the risks.
5. Train workers in the use of work at height equipment and safety measures, and discuss the contents of your risk assessments with them, including the importance of implementing the controls provided to reduce identified risks.

Contact Walker Health and Safety Services Limited if you require assistance.

Hand and arm injuries caused by machinery parts are far too common, even in this day and age. Take the time today to check all of your machines for hazards, and ensure that any moving parts are properly guarded.

1. Do a risk assessment to identify the hazards presented by each of the machines on site. See where a worker could get their hand pulled in by a rotating blade or roller, where a sharp blade could cut them, or where a machinery part could crush them, for example.
2. Prevent access to these parts where possible, for example by enclosing the machine. Paint lines around machines to show workers the safe areas in which they should stand. Provide emergency stop buttons in suitable places and ensure they are visible and working correctly. Use interlocks where feasible on machine doors to stop the process should the doors be opened during the machine cycle.
3. Use suitable guarding on areas that are hard to fully enclose. Use fixed, durable guards that cannot be easily removed.
4. Train workers on the hazards identified and on how to use control measures such as guarding. Make sure they know not to remove any guarding without permission, and that the machine must be isolated from the power source first.
5. Prepare in advance for maintenance and cleaning activities. Plan how workers should undertake these roles, and how guarding or other controls are to be safely removed. Use a checklist to verify that all controls are back in place and working correctly before the machine is put back into use.

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