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what not to do height safety

Oh dear, can you spot the safety issue in the image above? 

Your safety is important to us, which is why we stock such an extensive range of height safety equipment to help protect you and your team during various working at height jobs. Height safety equipment is something we particularly pride ourselves on, from harnesses to fall arrest blocks we can help you stay safe - There's just one catch...  You need to know how to use it!

As you can see in the above image, you can have access to the most high-quality height safety equipment, but you need to know how to use it correctly and safely - in this case, knowing to attach yourself to a suitable engineered and improvised anchorage point before approaching a leading edge! As we've said, we supply a huge range of safety gear, all of which you can browse by clicking here. But in accordance with the working at height regulations 2005, you also need to ensure that anyone required to work at height is suitably trained and competent.

To be in compliance with current regulations, you must undergo appropriate height safety training to make sure you understand the risks associated with working at height and that you can have a better understanding of how to minimise the risks. We provide various a Working at Heights Course that provides all the essential knowledge and training that anyone working at height would need. We highly recommend this for those working at height and also their supervisors/managers to ensure health and safety regulations are being met.

The best advice we can give you is NOT to ignore the instruction manuals supplied with our products and follow the current regulations regarding working at height. View the  HSE's guide to height safety hereWithout knowing how to use the equipment properly, you are still putting yourself and others at risk.

All of our products are supplied complete with instruction manuals. These manuals can also be easily downloaded from our website, it's vital that you read the instructions carefully before using the equipment. Many of our products also have videos that give additional specific information. If a video is included you will find it on the right-hand side of the product pages. As you can see:

To see our full collection of product videos you can visit our YouTube channel

 We also have a huge range of blogs on height safety that can help you meet all the safety requirements necessary for jobs up high. Read the following blogs before working up high to ensure you don't make any silly mistakes:

Working at Heights Course from SafetyLiftinGear

Height Safety Solutions 

Working at Height Risk Assessment

Working at Height Rescue Plan

Working at Heights - Regulations and Employer Responsibilities

Working at Height Safety: Questions and Answers

 

If you have any questions about how to use any of our safety equipment please do not hesitate to get in touch. Always remember to put your safety first and ensure you know how to use our equipment before using it! Contact us today for more information

 

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man working at height - working at height guide, HSE (Health and Safety Executive) regulations and employer resposibilities in the UK

If you work at height, you'll know that taking safety seriously is an important priority. Working at height is the leading cause of injuries and fatalities in the construction industry, and this is no surprise with workers commonly working on rooftops, ladders, and fragile surfaces.

The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) are fully aware of the risks involved with such tasks and have stated working at height regulations that must be adhered to for safety when working at height. More...

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working at height safety

Falls while working at a height are responsible for a huge amount of workplace injuries and fatalities every year. In Great Britain, falls from a height were the biggest cause of workplace fatalities in 2017. 

Safety precautions are incredibly important for anyone who works at height. To help improve height safety knowledge today, we've put together a few of the most common working at height safety question and answers.

More...

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The ultimate hazard of working at height is, of course, falling. You do not have to fall from a great height to injure yourself. The severity of your injury is determined by many factors including weight, age, how you land, and the surface you fall on.

When we hear the phrase ‘working at height’ it’s common to assume this refers to working on roofs or skyscrapers, but actually, the UK Health & Safety Executive defines it as "work carried out in any place where a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury".

If you or someone you employ is in ANY way capable of falling from a height and sustaining an injury, you must take the proper safety precautions. When trying to determine the risks of your workplace it may be necessary to do a height risk assessment. You can read more about this here: Working at Height Risk Assessment

Regardless of the height you work at, it’s important to remember that catastrophic injuries or even death can happen from falls of only a few feet. The hazards of working at height should not be underestimated, and it’s important to provide the proper equipment to ensure safety.

 

 

Common hazards of working at height

While falling is most likely the most common hazard of working at height, there are others to be aware of. These include:

  • Dropping/falling equipment - Falling equipment can be fatal. It is vital that the proper height safety equipment is used to stop workers from being able to drop objects like tools from height.

  • Insufficient PPE - If you or your workers are not wearing the required protective clothing, they are at risk of injury. Protective equipment such as hard hats can help to keep you or your employees safe.

  • Lack of/poor risk assessment - A thorough risk assessment will identify and analyse any potential hazards to best prepare workers in the event of an incident. Inadequate risk assessment put everyone involved at risk.

  • Inexperience - Mistakes happen, but knowingly allowing inexperienced members of staff to carry out tasks at height is extremely dangerous.

 

We provide various equipment to reduce the risk of falling such as safety harnesses, fall arrest blocks, and ladder safety kits. We also offer a working at height training course to ensure you know exactly how to keep yourself safe. 

Full Range of Height Safety Equipment 

 

If you have any further queries about how to keep you or anyone else safe from the hazards of working at height, feel free to get in touch. Our helpful team is more than happy to give you advice.

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Working at Heights Course

Here at SafetyLiftinGear we specialise in a whole plethora of height safety equipment, but before you get up there and start work, we understand that you're going to need to know how to use your height safety equipment properly in order to prevent any accidents or fatalities - and that's where our Working at Heights training course can help.

Our Working at Heights Course provides essential training for anyone that works at height, as well as highly recommended for supervisors, managers, the appointed personnel that have to meet health and safety duties, and business owners.

This training course is delivered by The Training Societi in partnership with us. The Training Societi are a Bristol based training consultancy that specialise in workplace health and safety, and they deliver a range of training courses - such as the course you can find in our safety training courses category. 

The Working at Heights training course will take place in Bristol, and will take an entire day to complete. The course consists of the following:

  • Health and Safety Laws and Regulations
  • The responsibilities of employees and employers
  • Definition of Work at Height
  • The four basic principles to planning work at height following HSE guidelines
  • The different types of equipment, and how to select the correct equipment
  • Five steps of conducting and recording a risk assessment
  • Advice on how to collate method statements 
  • Preventative and protective control measures 
  • Test paper, questions, handouts and a review

The course is based around HSE guidelines; delivered by a friendly and experienced consultant in a comfortable environment; provides you with bespoke advice that meet your company's requirements; and it'll provides you with peace of mind - it keeps you, your employees and your business safe and legal. Once you have completed the course, you will be provided with a Training Societi certificate and photographic ID card with a 5 year expiry.

To book your Working at Height Training Course, please click here. To view our entire range of training courses, click here.

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Safety Harness for Working at Height

Last week, a judge at Manchester Crown Court sent three people to jail. Why? Because they failed to follow the rules for working safely at height, and because they attempted to cover up their negligence after disaster struck.

Back in 2014, two men - Benjamin Edge and Peter Heap - were working on the roof of a shed in wet and windy conditions. There were no height safety measures in place to prevent Edge and Heap from falling and injuring themselves; they weren't wearing safety harnesses, and no other safeguards had been provided for their protection. During the job, Benjamin Edge fell from the roof and sustained severe head injuries. He was pronounced dead at Salford Royal Hospital that night.

If this were the end of the story, Mr Edge's employer - SR and RJ Brown Ltd - would still have been in very hot water indeed. Companies who commit corporate manslaughter by failing to identify and address on-the-job hazards are routinely punished with large fines and even jail time in some cases. In this particular case, however, the firm's wrongdoing did not end with Mr Edge's death.

After the accident, Mr Heap was ordered to bring a set of safety harnesses to the work site to make it look as though proper safety precautions had been taken. Furthermore, James Brown - one of the directors of SR and RJ Brown Ltd - created fake risk assessment forms and handed these to the authorities investigating the incident. All of this was done to create the impression that the firm had followed the rules and that they were not at fault for Mr Edge's death.

Eventually, the cover-up was revealed and the two company directors were sentenced to 20 months in jail, plus a fine of £300,000. Mark Aspin, who contracted the job to SR and RJ Brown Ltd, has been jailed for 12 months.

Why risk breaching safety regulations?

When preparing to carry out a routine task, it can sometimes be tempting to ignore health and safety law and just get it done as quickly as possible. However, as the story above demonstrates, any time you save by skipping the safety precautions will pale in comparison to the possible consequences. Not only can you face hefty fines and jail sentences for putting your employees in danger, you also risk ending lives, wrecking families, and causing damage that can never be undone.

Stay safe at work - if you're an employer, it is your legal responsibility to carry out a risk assessment and put the necessary safeguards in place to protect your workers!
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Happy New Year everyone! We hope you had a restful Christmas break and that you're feeling energised and optimistic for 2017.
 
If you saw a programme called A Big Lego Christmas on Channel 4 over the holidays, there's a chance you may have spotted our G-Force P10 safety harness kit in use:
 
Safety Harness Kit on TV
 
This fully adjustable safety harness is great for staying safe when working at height. In the picture above, the P10 is being worn by a worker on a cherry picker as he helps to construct a working Lego replica of London's iconic Tower Bridge. If you saw the TV show, you'll know that the completed model broke the record for the world's largest Lego structure - it stood 42ft high, and consisted of more than 5.8 million bricks!
 
Safety harness kit
 
Our P10 safety harness is comfortable, flexible, and extremely hard-wearing. It comes in three different sizes, and it's ideal for all sorts of elevated working environments. If you buy or hire the full safety harness kit, you'll also get a kernmantle rope lanyard with screw gate karabiner for easy anchoring.
 
Watch the video below for some more information about the G-Force safety harness, or click here to buy / hire yours.

 
 
 
 
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