Keeping balance

Last year, 61 people died and more than 14,000 suffered serious injury as a result of a slip, trip or fall from height in British workplaces. These shocking statistics prompted the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to launch a campaign to raise awareness about the risks and how to prevent them.
    
The first phase drove over 800,000 visitors to the website thanks to a hard hitting, award winning publicity campaign. It highlighted the devastating consequences of slips, trips and falls in the workplace and encouraged employers, in consultation with their employees, to ‘take action’.
    
Crucially, the campaign has begun to change attitudes. The latest phase aims to build on this success and further help educate employees and employers on what they can do to minimise this type of unnecessary accidents at work.

A trivial incident?
Despite a sustained reduction over the last decade in the number of fatalities from falls from height, it remains the most common kind of fatal injury, accounting for 19 per cent of all fatal injuries to workers.
    
Workplace slips and trips cause the most common kind of major injury, accounting for 38 per cent of all such injuries.  
    
“People often view slips, trips and falls as trivial incidents, even comical but they are no joke to those who suffer major injuries, a lifetime of disability, time off work and in the worst cases death,” says Marcia Davies, HSE Head of the Injury Reduction Programme.
    
“We want more people to understand how these incidents can happen and how easily they can be avoided by taking common sense actions and precautions at no, or little, cost. If you spot a hazard in your workplace, manage it or report it to someone who can – don’t assume that somebody else will.
    
“The lives of workers and their families are shattered by the serious consequences of these types of accidents. Businesses can introduce simple measures to make a positive difference to safety in the workplace.”

The health sector
The new phase of the campaign is targeting the health sector as one of the areas with an unacceptably high number of workplace slip, trip and fall incidents. In this sector slips and trips account for 54 per cent of major injuries to employees, with many resulting in broken bones and costing the NHS millions of pounds.
    
Health sector employees see at first hand the breaks, fractures and sprains that come from accidental falls and the last thing that they want is to be injured in the same way. These kinds of incidents can lead to employees taking considerable time off work and can have a massive long-term impact on people’s lives.  
    
Taking sensible measures to keep workplaces safe can protect staff and help give patients a good level of service.

The National Audit Office has urged NHS Trusts to review their health and safety risk management policies and improve accident reporting systems following a report revealing that slips and trips are the main type of accidents to workers and patients in this sector.

Compromising patient care
The cost of accidents could affect the delivery of high quality patient care and viability of the business. For example:

• patients being seriously injured through falls leads to additional medical costs and an increased stay in hospital, with implications for waiting lists and service delivery
• staff sickness absence due to slips, trips and falls at work, and other associated costs, such as staff replacement costs, will have a detrimental effect on budgets
• people may experience hardship as a result of loss of wages, as well as pain and suffering.

These accidents can be cut dramatically through planning and positive management during refurbishment and new build, together with good housekeeping. Employees should be consulted at an early stage, as they will have useful experience of areas where problems arise. Accidents are not an inevitable part of the healthcare industry – they can and should be prevented.
    
The main causes of slips and trips accidents in healthcare are: slippery/wet surfaces caused by water and other fluids; slippery surfaces caused by dry or dusty floors; contamination, such as plastic, lint or talcum powder; obstructions, both temporary and permanent; uneven surfaces and changes of level, such as unmarked ramps.
    
Other causes include factors such as a poor level of lighting and external glare; human factors such as employees rushing; running or carrying heavy/cumbersome items; the wearing of unsuitable footwear or the use of improper cleaning regimes.
    
Studies have shown that carrying even a light load can effect gait patterns (how we walk) and increase the risk of falling, especially among older people. In areas where individuals are likely to be encumbered and therefore have a restricted view of the floor, consider particularly the anti-slip properties of the flooring material.
    
Last year slips and trips cost the health sector more than £72 million, in sickness absence pay and lost productivity, just over 10 per cent of the estimated £700m cost to British society of such mishaps.  

Recommendations
In order to reduce slips trips and falls, the workplace regulator recommends that you do:

• Follow the free practical guidance offered by ‘STEP’ (www.hse.gov.uk/slips/step/index.htm).
• Depending on the degree of risk and the size of business, develop a policy document but crucially ensure practical arrangements are in place, such as quickly cleaning up spillages and better still preventing spillage of water, oils, cardboard, waste, etc onto the floor in the first place. 
• Remove any obstructions.
• Avoid creating trailing cables.
• Store goods safely.
• Keep workstations clear of obstacles.
• Make sure flooring materials are level and secure.
• Mark slopes and changes of levels.
• Ensure you have adequate lighting.
• Wear sensible footwear.

Think about visitors to your workplace, what do they need to know? Do you need to do more to protect them?

It is equally important that you don’t:

• Think your entrance design is fine – if rainwater gets onto a smooth surface inside or outside a building, it may create a slip hazard. Good entrance design can help such as canopies.
• Ignore frost and ice, which may create slippery surfaces. 
• Assume that the existing floor surface has enough grip – check it.
• Let people take shortcuts over grass or dirt which are likely to become slippery when wet. Consider converting existing shortcuts into proper paths.
• Work in the wrong light – make sure that things like poor lighting or glare don’t prevent people seeing where they are walking.
• Let the floor get wet or contaminated.
• Have water or contaminants near walkways.
• Ignore spillages or contamination that does get onto the floor.
• Wear shoes with no grip – you need a pair with good grip, so you don’t slip.

For more information
To find out more about the shattered lives campaign and slips, trips and falls visit www.hse.gov.uk/shatteredlives