It is considered a person is (working at heights) at risk of a fall:

Fall means a fall by a person from one level to another

Risk of a fall means a circumstance that exposes a worker while at work, or other person while at or in the vicinity of a workplace, to a risk of a fall that is reasonably likely to cause injury to the worker or other person.  This includes circumstances in which the worker or other person is:

In those cases all workers should be trained to work safely at heights.

Regulation 34-38 state:

In order to manage risk under the WHS Regulations, a duty holder must: identify reasonably foreseeable hazards that could give rise to the risk eliminate the risk so far as is reasonably practicable if it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate the risk – minimise the risk so far as is reasonably practicable by implementing control measures in accordance with the hierarchy of control maintain the implemented control measure so that it remains effective review, and if necessary revise, risk control measures so as to maintain, so far as is reasonably practicable, a work environment that is without risks to health and safety.

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provides guidance on how to manage the risks of persons falling from one level to another by following a systematic process that involves:

Guidance on the general risk management process is available in the Code of Practice: How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks

You must identify all locations and tasks that could cause injury due to a fall. This includes access to the areas where work is to be carried out. Tasks that need particular attention are those carried out:

INSPECT THE WORKPLACE
Walk around the workplace and talk to your workers to find out where work is carried out
that could result in falls. A checklist may be useful in this process. Key things to look for
include:
1.  surfaces:
+ the stability, fragility or brittleness
+ the potential to slip, for example where surfaces are wet, polished or glazed
+ the safe movement of workers where surfaces change
+ the strength or capability to support loads
+ the slope of work surfaces, for example, where they exceed 7 degrees.
2.  levels—where levels change and workers may be exposed to a fall from one level to
another
3.  structures—the stability of temporary or permanent structures
4.  the ground—the evenness and stability of the ground for safe support of scaffolding or a
work platform
5.  the working area—whether it is crowded or cluttered
6.  entry and exit from the working area
7.  edges—protection for open edges of floors, working platforms, walkways, walls or roofs
8.  holes, openings or excavations—which will require guarding
9.  hand grip—places where hand grip may be lost.

In some situations, advice may be needed from technical specialists, such as structural
engineers, to check the stability of structures or load bearing capacity.

REVIEW AVAILABLE INFORMATION, INCLUDING INCIDENT RECORDS

You should check your records of previous injuries and ‘near miss’ incidents related to falls.

Information and advice about fall hazards and risks relevant to particular industries and work activities is also available from regulators, industry associations, unions, technical specialists and safety consultants.

 

A risk assessment will help you determine:

A risk assessment is unnecessary if you already know the risk and how to control it.

When assessing the risks arising from each fall hazard, the following matters should be considered:

GENERIC RISK ASSESSMENT

If you are responsible for a number of different work areas or workplaces and the fall hazards are the same, you may perform a single (or generic) risk assessment. However, you should carry out a risk assessment on individual fall hazards if there is any likelihood that a person may be exposed to greater, additional or different risks.

Please use the Code of Practice to assist with this process:

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There are a number of ways to control the risks of falls.  Some control measures are more effective than others.  Control measures can be ranked from the highest level of protection and reliability to the lowest.  This ranking is known as the hierarchy of control.  The WHS Regulations require duty holders to work through this hierarchy to choose the control that most effectively eliminates or minimises the risk in the circumstances.  This may involve a single control measure or a combination of two or more different methods

In managing the risks of falls, the WHS Regulations require the following specific control measures to be implemented, where it is reasonably practicable to do so:

It is usually not necessary to implement additional control measures to manage the risk of falls for workplaces in buildings that already comply with the requirements of the National Construction Code of Australia, for example in relation to stairs, mezzanines and balconies.

      3.  Can the risk of a fall be minimised by providing and maintaining a   safe system of work, including: 

a. providing a fall prevention device (for example, installing guard rails) if it is     reasonably practicable to do so, or

b. providing a work positioning system (for example, an industrial rope access system)
if it is not reasonably practicable to provide a fall prevention device, or

c.  providing a fall-arrest system, so far as is reasonably practicable, if it is not reasonably practicable to provide a fall prevention device or a work positioning system.

In some cases a combination of control measures may be necessary, for example using a safety harness while working from an elevating work platform.

Control measures are needed where there is a risk of injury irrespective of fall height. For low falls, you should assess the risk and provide reasonably practicable measures that reflect the risk. For example, there may be a risk of injury to workers standing on a narrow 1.7 metre high platform next to a production line where they have to work with their back to the open edge or where there is a risk of falling onto an uneven surface with sharp edges or protrusions. In this situation it may be reasonably practicable to install a guard rail along the edge of the platform.

Sometimes it may not be reasonably practicable to provide guard rails, for example at the edges of railway platforms or vehicle inspection pits. Other safe systems of work to provide adequate protection should be implemented, for example brightly painted lines to designate edges.

Work of long duration and higher frequency will usually require control measures higher up the hierarchy to provide adequate protection, for example using a mobile scaffold instead of a ladder.

You should also ensure that the control measures you select do not create new hazards, for example electrical risks from contact with overhead power lines or crushing and entanglement from plant such as elevating work platforms.

Eliminating the need to work at height is the most effective way of protecting workers from the risk of falls. Examples of eliminating the risk by working on the ground include:

Working on a solid construction provides an environment where the likelihood of a fall may be eliminated. ‘Solid construction’ means an area that:

 

STRUCTURAL STRENGTH

Different types of work involve different loads on the supporting surface. The surface and its supports must be able to safely carry the expected loads, including workers, materials, tools and equipment. When in doubt, have a structural engineer determine the safe load capacity before use.

BARRIERS

Barriers (or edge protection) to prevent a person falling over edges and into holes should be provided on relevant parts of a solid construction. These include:

The barrier should be designed and constructed to withstand the force of someone falling against it.

Edge protection should consist of guard rails, solid balustrades or other structural components, for example wire mesh supported by posts and provided with a reinforced top edge. The top of the guard rail or component should be between 900 mm and 1100 mm above the working surface. If a guard rail system is used, it should also have mid-rails and toe boards or wire mesh infill panels.

If access is required to equipment (for example, a hoist) it should be protected with gates, safety chains or other means to prevent a person falling.

PROTECTION OF OPENINGS AND HOLES

Holes, penetrations and openings through which a person could fall should be made safe immediately after being formed.

If a cover is used as a control measure, it must be made of a material that is strong enough to prevent persons or objects falling through and must be securely fixed to prevent any dislodgement or accidental removal.

SURFACE AND GRADIENT

Surfaces of solid construction should be non-slip, free from trip hazards and should generally not exceed 7 degrees (1 in 8 gradient). Cleated surfaces, which provide greater slip-resistance, should not be steeper than 20 degrees (1 in 3 gradient).

If grid mesh or checker plate flooring is used for walkways and working platforms, ensure that:

 

ENTRY AND EXIT

The solid construction must have a safe means for people to get to, from and move around the work area, for example permanently installed platforms, ramps, stairways and fixed ladders.

Further guidance is available in AS 1657 Fixed platforms, walkways, stairways and ladders – Design, construction and installation.

Safety considerations include:

Portable ladders should only be used where the use of safer systems is not reasonably practicable.

A ‘temporary work platform’ is a working platform, other than a permanently installed fixed platform, used to provide a working area for the duration of the job. The design of the platform prevents workers from falling. Temporary work platforms include scaffolds, elevating work platforms, mast climbers, workboxes, building maintenance units, portable or mobile fabricated platforms or any other platform that provides a working area and is designed to prevent a fall.

SCAFFOLDING

Scaffolding can be very effective protection in preventing falls; however, there are specific requirements that apply to some types of scaffold under the WHS Regulations.

Regulation 225 states:

A person with management or control of a scaffold must not allow the use of a scaffold from which a person or object could fall more than four metres unless a competent person provides written confirmation that the scaffold has been completed. The person must also ensure that:the scaffold and its supporting structure is inspected by a competent person before use, after any incident that could affect its stability (such as a severe storm), after any repairs, and at least every 30 daysunauthorised access is prevented on scaffolding that is incomplete and left unattended (for example, by attaching danger tags and warning signs at appropriate locations).

 

Scaffolding work platforms are generally rated as light, medium or heavy duty. Safety considerations include:

Information, instruction and training for workers using scaffolds

Where work is performed from a scaffold, you must ensure that the relevant workers understand:

Where work is performed using mobile scaffolds, workers should be trained to ensure the scaffold:

Elevating Work Platforms (EWPs) include scissor lifts, cherry pickers, boom lifts and travel towers. There are battery powered and internal combustion engine types. Some are designed for hard flat surfaces only, while others are designed to be operated on rough terrain.

Safety considerations include that:

A workbox is designed to be supported by a crane, hoist, forklift truck or other mechanical device to provide an elevated work area for persons working from the box.  It consists of a platform surrounded by an edge protection system and should be designed in accordance with AS 1481:17 Cranes (including hoists and winches) – Design and construction of workboxes.

Where reasonably practicable, other working platforms, such as an elevating working platform or scaffold, should be used as an alternative to the workbox.

The safety requirements and considerations include that:

 

For specifications for the use of crane workboxes refer to AS 2550.1 Cranes, Hoists and Winches—Safe Use—General Requirements.

A workbox fitted to a forklift must be securely attached to the forklift carriage and engineer-designed and constructed in accordance with AS 2359 Powered industrial trucks

Safety considerations include that:

Designers of buildings should consider the methods by which maintenance, repairs or cleaning will be undertaken on buildings or structures.

A building maintenance unit is a power-operated suspended working platform that is fixed permanently to a building or structure. It is used for access for building maintenance or window cleaning (see Figure 15).

Safety considerations include that:

Guard rails may be used to provide effective fall prevention:

Guard rails should incorporate a top rail 900mm to 1100 mm above the working surface and a mid rail and a toe board.

Before using a guard rail system you should check that it will be adequate for the potential loads. The required load resistance will depend on the momentum of a falling person. For example, the momentum of a person falling from a pitched roof will increase as the pitch (or angle) of the roof increases.

Refer to AS/NZS 4994—Temporary Edge Protection series for further guidance.

Safety mesh is designed to prevent internal falls through a roof. If securely fixed, safety mesh provides fall protection for roof installers and offers long-term protection against falling for maintenance and repair workers.

Safety mesh does not prevent falls from the edge of a roof or through holes in a roof, so it should always be used in conjunction with appropriate edge protection, guard rails or fall-arrest systems.

Safety mesh should comply with AS/NZS 4389 Safety mesh, which specifies the minimum requirements for the design, construction, testing and installation of safety mesh for use in domestic, commercial and industrial building applications.

The mesh should be formed from 2 mm diameter wire of not less than 450 MPa tensile strength, welded into a mesh with the longitudinal wires not more than 150 mm apart and the cross wires not more than 300 mm apart.

Safety mesh should be installed in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions by competent persons, who should be protected against the risk of falling by using appropriate control measures such as scaffolding, elevating work platforms or fall-arrest systems.

Particular care is required to ensure that the mesh is securely connected to the structure and the overlap between adjacent sections of mesh is sufficient to generate the necessary strength to resist the force of a person falling onto it. The safety mesh should be covered by the roof cladding as soon as reasonably practicable after it has been installed.

Industrial rope access systems are used for gaining access to and working at a workface, usually by means of vertically suspended ropes. Although fall-arrest components are used in the industrial rope access system, the main purpose of the system is to gain access to a work area rather than to provide backup fall protection (see Figure 18).

Other methods of accessing a workface should be considered (for example, EWPs or building maintenance units) before rope access systems, as a high level of skill is needed for their safe use.

You should ensure that, where it is necessary for industrial rope access systems to be used:

Further guidance on industrial rope access systems is available in AS/NZS 4488 Industrial rope access systems series.

A restraint technique controls a person’s movement by physically preventing the person reaching a position at which there is a risk of a fall. It consists of a harness that is connected by a lanyard to an anchorage or horizontal life line. It must be set up to prevent the wearer from reaching an unprotected edge.

A restraint technique is suitable for use where:

Restraint techniques should only be used if it is not reasonably practicable to prevent falls by providing a physical barrier (for example, a guard rail). This is because restraint techniques require a high level of user skill to operate safely and also greater supervision.

A restraint system should be installed by a competent person in accordance with the
manufacturer’s instructions. Restraint anchorage should be designed for fall-arrest loading.

An individual fall-arrest system should be used instead of restraint techniques if any of the
following situations apply:

A fall-arrest system is intended to safely stop a worker falling an uncontrolled distance and reduce the impact of the fall. This system must only be used if it is not reasonably practicable to use higher level controls or if higher level controls might not be fully effective in preventing a fall on their own.

All equipment used for fall-arrest should be designed, manufactured, selected and used in compliance with the AS1891 series of standards.

Key safety considerations in using fall arrest systems are:

A fall arrest system can be:

Each anchorage point should comply with the requirements in AS/NZS 1891.4 Industrial fall-arrest systems and devices – selection, use and maintenance.

All anchorages should be tested and approved by a competent person before use—a visual inspection may not reveal the structural integrity of the anchor point (i.e. the bolt may have failed below the concrete surface).

Each anchorage point should be located so that a lanyard of the system can be attached to it before the person using the system moves into a position where the person could fall.

Inspect the system components

Each component of the system and its attachment to an anchorage must be inspected by a competent person:

Inspection of all components should be conducted in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications and the relevant standards. If any signs of wear or weakness are found during the inspection, the components or means of attachment should be withdrawn from use until they are replaced with properly functioning components.

Fall-arrest systems, incorporating a lanyard, should be installed so that the maximum distance a person would free fall before the fall-arrest system takes effect is two metres. There should be sufficient distance between the work surface and any surface below to enable the system, including the action of any shock absorber to fully deploy. To work out whether there is enough distance available, you should take into account:

 

The calculation for maximum fall distance is:

SO YOU CANNOT WORK IN FALL ARREST ON A SINGLE STORY DWELLING OR ANYWHERE BELOW 6.85M

MAINTAIN MINIMUM OF SLACK IN FALL-ARREST LANYARD

There should be a minimum of slack in the fall-arrest lanyard between the user and the attachment. The anchorage point should be as high as the equipment permits. Avoid work above the anchor point, as this will increase the free fall distance in the event of a fall, resulting in higher forces on the body and greater likelihood of the lanyard snagging on obstructions.

When considering the use of inertia reels, bear in mind that they might not be effective in certain situations. For example, if a worker falls down the inclined surface of a steeply pitched roof, the inertia reel line may keep extending from the reel—it may not lock.

Inertia reels should not be used as working supports by locking the system and allowing it to support the user during normal work. They are not designed for continuous support.

Vertical and self-retracting anchorage lines can be used as a risk control measure in connection with work performed from boatswains’ chairs and ladders. Where such lines are used, only one person may be attached to any one line.

Lanyards should not be used in conjunction with inertia reels as this can result in an excessive amount of free fall prior to the fall being arrested.

Inertia reels are designed to place you in a situation of limited free fall, if set up correctly.  That means the operator, provided the unit is set directly above the head cannot free fall more than .6m.  Thus reducing the risks of injury.

Whenever there are risks from working at height, appropriate emergency procedures and facilities, including first aid, must be established and provided. Typical injuries from falls can include unconsciousness and occluded airway, impalement, serious head or abdominal injuries and fractures.

A person using a fall-arrest system could suffer suspension intolerance as a result of a fall. The WHS Regulations contain a specific provision to address the need for emergency and rescue procedures for such situations.

Regulation 80 states:

A person conducting a business or undertaking who implements a fall-arrest system as a measure to control risk must establish emergency and rescue procedures.This procedure must be tested so that they are effective.  Workers must be provided with suitable and adequate information, instruction and training in relation to the emergency procedure.

 

In developing emergency procedures, the different types of emergency and rescue scenarios that might arise should be considered. Information from the risk assessment will help in this task.

Regulation 42 states:

You must ensure that workers have access to first aid equipment and facilities for the administration of first aid. You must also ensure that workers are trained to administer first aid or that workers have access to persons who are trained in first aid.

To assist in creating a heights rescue plan, please refer to the Code of Practice.

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The emergency procedures for falls may be incorporated into the emergency plan required for the workplace under the WHS Regulations.

Suspension intolerance can occur with a fall-arrest system when a person has an arrested fall and is suspended in an upright, vertical position with the harness straps causing pressure on the leg veins. The lower legs’ capacity to store large amounts of blood reduces the return of blood to the heart, slowing the heart rate, which can cause the person to faint. This may lead to renal failure and eventually death, depending on a person’s susceptibility. This condition may be worsened by heat and dehydration.

The quick rescue of a person suspended in a full body harness, as soon as is possible, is vital. For this reason, workers should be capable of conducting a rescue of a fallen worker and be familiar with onsite rescue equipment and procedures.

Workers and emergency response workers must be trained in the rescue procedures and be able to recognise the risks of suspension intolerance and act quickly in the rescue of a person.

PREVENTING SUSPENSION INTOLERANCE
To prevent suspension intolerance occurring as a result of an arrested fall, you should ensure that:

TRAINING FOR RESCUES
The training for rescuing workers who have fallen should address the following factors:

Ladders are primarily a means of access and egress. Many falls take place when people are working from ladders. In addition, when using a ladder:

For these reasons, you should consider whether an elevating work platform or scaffolding would be safer and more efficient.

Portable Ladders

Extension or single ladders should generally only be used as a means of access to or egress from a work area. They should only be used as a working platform for light work of short duration that can be carried out safely on the ladder.

SELECTING LADDERS

If ladders are used they must be selected to suit the task to be undertaken. In doing this, you should consider the duration of the task, the physical surroundings of where the task is to be undertaken and the prevailing weather conditions.

Ladders should have a load rating of at least 120 kg and be manufactured for industrial use.

POSITIONING LADDERS

Any ladder used at a workplace must be set up on a solid and stable surface, and set up so as to prevent the ladder from slipping. Single and extension ladders can be prevented from slipping by:

ACCESS OR EGRESS

Where fixed or extension ladders are used for access or egress, you should check that:

SAFE USE OF LADDERS

When a ladder is used, you should check that:

When using ladders, it is not safe to:

Except where additional and appropriate fall protection equipment is used in conjunction with the ladder, it is not safe to:

Guidance on the selection, safe use and care of portable ladders is set out in AS/NZS 1892 Portable ladders series. The manufacturer’s recommendations on safe use should also be followed.