Safe Working At Height

As a sector, we have made great progress in recent years in raising the safety standards of our construction sites. It’s now widely accepted that there should be zero tolerance for harm in the workplace.

Why then do the numbers reveal so many accidents? According to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive, construction worker fatalities are 70 per cent higher than before the Covid pandemic. The HSE’s statistics reflect that for the year ending in March 2024, 51 construction workers died in accidents.

Falls from height were the biggest single cause of those deaths. Across all sectors, falls from height accounted for 50 deaths during the year, up from 41 in 2022/23.

These statistics are alarming and completely unacceptable, and they are part of the reason why the CIOB is once again supporting the Safe Working from Height campaign.

Fatalities and the iceberg beneath

Fatalities are of course the worst outcome, and they represent a moral failure if we do not do everything we can do to prevent them.

But fatalities are just the tip of the iceberg. According to the British Safety Council, up to 992,000 working days were lost through non-fatal falls from height in Great Britain in 2022/23 alone. 

The falls have devastating effects on families and friends. Notably, the Safe Working at Height campaign has highlighted the story of Abbi Taylor, whose father survived a fall from height.

Abbi is now the managing director of Proud2bSafe, a company founded by her father that aims to prevent avoidable accidents. She remains driven by memories of the mental health challenges her father experienced after the fall.

Despite the prevalence of falls from height and the impact they have, there’s some concern that the number of cases that the HSE investigates is going down. A shortage of resources for enforcement suggests that the industry needs bear more of the responsibility itself. 

How the sector can respond

It all starts with awareness and understanding. There are plenty of training courses available, such as the Workplace Safety Skills course offered by CIOB Academy, which has a unit specifically covering risks and procedures/equipment relevant to working at height.

In addition, the British Safety Council offers some resources on their website.

Advances in technology

We’re seeing some exciting new developments in technology being talked about in the trade press, which can reduce some of the risks of working at height. These developments – which range from wearables alerting operatives to high-risk situations to virtual reality training tools to robotics and drones that keep humans far away from danger – can significantly reduce risks.

But they’re not without drawbacks. Some are costly. Some may actually introduce new risks, for example requiring managers to be sitting behind desks rather than surveying sites in person. 

And at the end of the day, some experts suggest that introducing new technology doesn’t eliminate the need to manage mindsets.

The professional mindset

At CIOB, we place modern professionalism at the heart of our mindset. Applied to the risks of working from height, modern professionalism is about recognising your ethical obligation to ensure quality and safety, even when it’s strictly not your legal responsibility. 

It’s about calling out bad practice anywhere you see it. It’s about creating safe, inclusive workplaces, and creating an environment where anyone feels empowered to speak up if they see something that isn’t right. I’m convinced that if construction professionals really put their minds to it, we can actually save more lives across the whole sector.

CIOB is promoting this year’s safe working at height campaign, and you can, too. Please join us in spreading the campaign’s messages about the new technology that can make people safer, the value of a safety-first mindset, and the terrible consequences if we get it wrong.

Get involved with the campaign at www.safeworkingatheightweek.com.