In the grisly Top 10 chart of industrial accidents, handling once reigned supreme, regularly causing the greatest number of workplace accidents in the UK. But all that changed four years ago when the Health and Safety Executive revised the way injuries are reported. Since then, slips and trips have consistently taken the number one spot in the pain and misery hit parade.
There were 21,331 slips and trips reported in 2014/15 compared with 17,262 handling injuries. During the same period, these combined injuries were responsible for the loss of a colossal two million working days.
But the reported statistics are only the tip of a very large iceberg according to Ian Rowe, fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF). He warns: “For every slip, trip or fall recorded, there are likely 20 to 30 near misses that go unreported.”
That’s bad enough. What makes it worse is that people still don’t know how to deal with the problem. Rowe explains: “It’s a quiet epidemic, people are getting hurt every day, but the issue is notoriously difficult to address. Most of the time, these types of accident are dealt with reactively.”
Unlike a dangerous piece of machinery, which can be made safe before workers use it, identifying when and where people might fall over is much more complex.
And the problem is exacerbated by cultural norms adds Rowe: “When people fall over, they feel embarrassed and think it’s their fault. We spend a lot of time laughing at people who fall– from television programmes like You’ve Been Framed to videos on YouTube. As an employer, it’s all too easy to shrug off your responsibilities by blaming the person who fell.”
Jill Joyce, senior policy and technical advisor at IOSH,also believes slips, trips and falls are an epidemic-but an avoidable one. Using the food and drink sector as an example, she says: “There are a handful of causes that consistently crop up as the key culprits of slips and trips. Wet floors cause 90% of slips, while 75% of trips are caused by obstructions; the rest arise from uneven surfaces.”
It’s a fallacy that these incidents are inevitable, she says. “In fact, where accident prevention techniques have been employed they have been known to cut injuries by 50%, reducing civil injury claims in the process(http://www.hse.gov.uk/food/slips.htm).”
Beware of the unexpected
Obvious slips and trips danger spots are relatively easy to manage because shopfloor workers will already have a heightened awareness of the dangers. It is the unexpected floor spillages or trip hazards that pose the greatest threat. As Rowe says, it’s psychological: “If you walk across ice, your behaviour changes dependent on your perception of risk. You’re likely to be more cautious and tread carefully. If you are walking on a dry surface with lots of grip and come across a spill, you are much more likely to slip as you haven’t adjusted your gait.”
There are simple tests you can use to rate your factory floor for slip resistance. The HSE’s website is a good place to start; its slips assessment tool (http://bit.ly/1J6UZdh) is a freely downloadable computer software package that allows an operator to assess the slip potential of pedestrian walkways.
Other technologies can provide instant results and many consultants also claim to offer help.However, for Arco’s Nick McLaren,slip resistance testing misses the point: “My question at the end of that would always be ‘so what?’ It’s great to be able to say that the floor is slip resistant, but what do you do with the information you’ve gathered? Even if the floor is slip resistant, there’s still the need for training and education in the risks associated with slips and trips, and, maybe, personal protective equipment (PPE).”
Of course, the best way to reduce slipping and tripping is to replace poor or uneven flooring. As McLaren says: “An awful lot of manufacturing plants in the UK are nigh-on a hundred years old and they don’t have the modern floor surfaces that, say, a food factory would have. If everybody could improve their floor surfaces, slip resistance and trip mitigation would increase hugely.”
However, he adds: “When we do work with customers, they often acknowledge that the best thing to do would be to have a new floor, but the disruption to production while it’s installed,plus the prohibitive costs,make this impossible.”
Give slips the boot with better footwear
That means the next line of defence – PPE– is particularly important. Footwear that has passed tests for slip resistance should have one of the following codes:
- SR-A – Tested on ceramic tile wetted with sodium lauryl sulphate (a diluted soap solution)
- SR-B – Tested on steel with glycerol
- SR-C –Tested under SR-A and SR-B conditions
The type of footwear and associated slip resistance must always be relevant to the environment and the potential hazards an individual may encounter. Jon Marchant, global category manager at Airwair International (Dr Martens), puts it like this: “Over-protected is always better than under-prepared.”
But the ‘SR’ test does not cover every eventuality,so it makes sense to consult the experts, according to McLaren: “In many cases, people are walking on different floor surfaces and in each of those areas you’ve got different contaminants. You also have people who walk outside and that can be a different environment each day, so we try our best to cover as many bases as possible. But you must also take into consideration the wearer and what tasks they are doing.”
Price, fashion, brand, and safety features and functions complicate the decision still further. McLaren again: “Specialists like ourselves can help customers manage this complexity.”
Buyers should be looking to suppliers to deliver a minimum of SR-A slip rating certified products in Europe, according to Marchant. He adds: “With a plethora of safety boot options available on the internet through the likes of search engines and online outlets, it is imperative that you check that they meet current ISO 20345:2011 safety standard.”
Through teamwork we shall not falter
So much for the technology; what about the people? One way to engage them is to involve them in mapping accident hotspots. This can be as simple as hanging a map of the factory on the wall and providing employees with sticky dots to pinpoint hazardous areas to help you identify the trends and what’s happening on the factory floor. The HSE offers advice on this (seehttp://bit.ly/1r0WFOW).
Preventing slips and trips is underpinned by risk assessment, a process that has people at its heart, says Dr Karen McDonnell, occupational health and safety policy adviser for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents . “Engaging with the workforce to identify potential accident blackspots is a simple yet effective way forward. Identifying where contamination has arisen from, how to stop it happening again, agreeing effective cleaning regimes and providing sufficient information, instruction, training and supervision is fundamental in controlling slip and trip accidents.”
However, as the CIEHF’s Joyce concludes, cutting the number of slips, trips and falls demands collaborative buy-in from the top down: “It needs managers to realise the seriousness of these accidents and put in place systems that properly maintain areas to make incidents less likely. It also requires supervisors to regularly check employees are working in an environment that minimises the chance of an accident.
“Finally, employees need to understand the importance of keeping their eyes open to the risks, and reducing them. If that culture can be successfully instilled in a business, it should start to see long-term improvements.”
BOX 1
Preventing dangerous slip-ups
Chris Budd of flooring products supplier Watco’s offers this advice on staying safe and remaining upright in your factory, especially in the treacherous winter months.
1)Assess your workplace risk– Start outdoors and work your way inside. Identify external areas that will be used by pedestrians and are most likely to be affected by snow and ice.
2)Put a plan in place – If possible, cover walkways to prevent snow accumulating or ice forming, place warning cones or signs, keep adequate supplies of snow and ice removal tools in readily accessible areas, and apply ice melt as often as necessary.
3)Don’t forget the overhead risk – Watch out for falling ice and melting snow on the roof.
4)Take account of the risks underfoot –One preventive measure is to add anti-slip traffic paint to pedestrian walkways. Glass-reinforced plastic is one of the best forms of slip resistance you can apply to your workplace for winter walking safety.
5)Indoor maintenance – Keep your floors clean, dry and free from obstruction. Limit walking to designated walkways as much as possible. Many anti-slip floor coatingsare suitable for concrete, wood or metal. Place water trap mats in entrance ways and walkways subject to water or snow accumulation. Anti-fatigue mats will also decrease the risk of slips.
Inspect, inspect, inspect – Continue tolook for problem areasand tackle them as you find them.