09.11.2012

Crushing statement

The UK’s HSE has issued a statement today clarifying its position in light of the action announced by some large contractors which are insisting on prescriptive solutions to crushing risks.

The statement says: “Work involving mobile elevating platforms (MEWPs) needs to be managed in accordance with the guidance produced by the Strategic Forum for Construction Plant Safety Group. This guidance which is intended to help industry reduce the risk of trapping and crushing injuries, was updated earlier this year to include information on selecting anti-entrapment devices.”

“If individual contractors choose to enforce the use of a particular device on their sites this is their decision. However fitting such devices alone will not prevent entrapment accidents and how effective a device is depends on where and how it is being used.”

In other words the insistence on a single solution for all of a company’s applications will not necessarily meet the best practice guidance which requires a case by case risk assessment. In the case of an accident where the dictated system had been used in place of the most suitable one for the job, the contractor would almost certainly be liable and would also, one assumes, be charged the Fee for Intervention to cover the investigation and follow up work by the HSE. Click here to see the full suite of guidance documents on this issue

Vertikal Comment

One hopes that efforts made by IPAF and its members this week (coupled with the fairly rigorous debate that has been going on within the access industry on both sides of the Atlantic ) common sense will reign and the net effect will be to pull all sides of the industry – contractors, manufacturers, rental companies, safety authorities and the industry associations together, so that in future flawed prescriptive edicts are not handed out by any single party.