Slips Trips and Falls on your Site – Risk Assessment & Action for Your Business

As the facility or property manager for private commercial sites, you know only too well about the importance of preventing slips, trips and falls during autumn and winter. Taking every step (excuse the pun) to introduce watertight safety policies, such as gritting is always advisable. 

In this blog, Grounds Care Group focus on what can happen if you don’t take proper care to safeguard the outside areas of your site. We include a guide on what to look out for when doing your onsite risk assessment and detail our own comprehensive winter maintenance contract. We want you to feel complete confidence that you’ll avoid accidents, as well as expensive claims this cold season. 

Slips, Trips and Falls Statistics

People hurting themselves through avoidable accidents at work pose real risks to business. In fact, in 2018, 27.3 million work days were lost due to work place injury and work related illness. The costs to Britain for workplace self-reported injuries and ill health exceeded £16 billion in 2018-19.

In particular, thousands of people are sent to hospital thanks to injury from falling during winter. In fact, in the winter of 2014-2015, there were 2,919 admissions directly as a result of people slipping over in icy conditions. In one instance in October 2015, a prison guard was awarded half a million pounds in compensation, after slipping on ice during patrol duty.

Listed as the most cause of common injury in the workplace, slips, trips and falls are responsible for over 40% of non-fatal accidents at work. Of course, a bruised shin or twisted ankle isn’t such a big deal, but what about a permanent disability or even death? Falling from height makes up to 25% of fatal accidents in the working environment in the UK. The UK government have long been aware of the economic and personal costs of slips, trips and falls and offer guidance on the correct procedures. 

If a proper winter maintenance service isn’t in place and employees or visitors slip over on ice on your premises you are liable. Organisations can experience real disruption in productivity with losses, legal claims, absentee employees and upset staff. Whether you’re in industrial business, office based, social housing or retail, you have an economic, moral and legal responsibility to make your premises are as safe as possible. 

What’s the Difference Between Slips, Trips and Falls?

By definition a slip is to do with a lack of friction between the footwear and the surface a person walks on. During winter, ice is a major culprit for slipping over. Applying grit to affected areas is an easy way of preventing slips.

A trip, on the other hand, is when a persons’ foot makes contact with an object on the ground or floor or a step, which knocks them off balance. Trips can be minimised by ensuring even surfaces throughout the working environment.

Despite what you might think, a fall isn’t just from a great height. It also includes falling from the same height as the ground. It generally involves a person losing their centre of balance.

What Are the Legal Requirements to Prevent Slips, Trips and Falls at Work?

Any HR or safety executive worth their salt, knows there are many specific legal requirements about health and safety at work. These rules aren’t just for employees, but for any external people who work on the premises, as well as visitors to the site.

Thanks to these stringent legislations, the UK has some of the lowest fatalities at work rate in Europe. According to the Health and Safety Executive Key Statistics and Figures, some 90% of UK companies regularly conduct risk assessments. 

As an expert grounds care maintenance company, Grounds Care Group make sure the exterior areas of your company adhere to all relevant safety laws, as below.  

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSW Act), states that sufficient and suitable control measures must be in place, to reduce the risk slips, trips and falls to the lowest rate possible. 

Under the HSW Act 1974, employees must never be required to endanger themselves or others, should cooperate with their employers, and should use safety equipment provided by their employer. 

Manufacturers and suppliers have a duty to ensure their products are safe, with a supply of adequate information of how to use the products. To learn more about the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 click here.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, details the need for employers to assess risks (including slips, trips and falls) and communicate those risks. Employers also have an obligation to investigate any incident that occurs. Employees have a duty to report potential danger or shortcomings they find in the organisation of health and safety. Further information on the Management of Health and Safety and Work Regulations 1999 can be found here.

The Workplace Health Safety and Welfare Regulations 1992, also contain further information about flooring and traffic flow and how they should be kept even, clean and clear at all times. The code of practice for The Workplace Regulations can be found here.

The Workplace Health Safety and Welfare Regulations 1992, also contain further information about flooring and traffic flow and how they should be kept even, clean and clear at all times. The code of practice for The Workplace Regulations can be found here.

The ‘Working at Height Regulations 2005’ stipulates that anyone working from height (such as a ladder or stepladder) must properly plan to do so. That includes ensuring the surfaces that you work on are even and stable. We can all imagine what would happen if you tried to place a ladder on uneven ground. As there is plenty of work that goes on outside of a building at height, it’s also important to be aware of the guidelines in place. Find the brief overview of working with heights.

How Grounds Care Group Can Help Your Business this Winter with External Risk Assessment

Grounds Care Group have a fully comprehensive winter risk management with full liability protection and comprehensive insurance. Our professional gritting service minimises all the associated risks of winter time, such as snow clearance, ice management and gritting, which improves the safety of your business, whilst mitigating claims should they arise.   

Our live reporting and scheduling system offers complete efficiency and ease for our customers. With minute to minute reporting on our services, you get a risk assessment tool at your fingertips, because we include inspection reports without you even asking. 

With our grounds maintenance service, we investigate the entire outside area of your property, thoroughly. From waste clearance and litter picking to leaf removal, from pot hole fixing to uneven surfaces, we aim to keep your site clear and risk free.  We cover a number of different sectors and can provide case studies for many happy customers. 

Grounds Care Group spend considerable time applying thorough control measures to places of work. That includes a slip assessment tool and falls risk assessment, with careful monitoring of weather conditions. Simple attention to detail, from securing trailing cables or removing spills, all help to minimise slip potential. 

Grounds Care Group work together with you for all your external grounds risk assessment needs.

That might include things like:   

Identification of Hazards

• Checking previous accident records
• Establishing which groups of people could potentially come to harm
• Establishing how might those people come to harm
• Get feedback from employees
• Consider visitors to your workplace, where will they be and what will they be doing

Evaluate Risks and Take Precautions

• Decide what to do about the hazards you have identified
• Look at what risk management you already have in place and assess if you can improve on that
• Develop a strategy to work around risks e.g. cleaners come out of hours, gritting staircases
• Adhering to health and safety risk assessments with every change of design to the workplace
• Ensuring areas are well
• Using signage for potential danger e.g. wet floor
• Remove waste regularly to ensure there is no health and safety or trip hazard
• Making sure Fire exits are completely clear at all times
• Dealing with ice and snow as well as slippery leaves during autumn and winter

Record All Findings in a Risk Register

• The law requires you to demonstrate how you have identified and implemented your risk assessments. Recording this in a legible way, means you’re covered if someone should still have a slip, trip or fall at work. If you can show that you have done everything within reason to prevent slips from happening, you are doing your job correctly and are mitigating any insurance claims 

The good news is, risk management is usually fairly straightforward

By implementing ‘reasonably practicable measures’ as above, you’re already half way to ensuring accidents happen less, or not at all. 

Once risk management is in place, regular maintenance is all that’s needed to upkeep the necessary standard. We recommend educating staff on what’s been put in place, to help achieve the goal of all workers going about their day safely.   

Grounds Care Group is the choice for any business of association that wishes to make absolutely sure they are covered for all potential slips, trips and falls. If you’d like a no obligation chat about the various grounds maintenance services we offer, whatever the weather, why not give our friendly customer services team a call? We’re on hand to give sound advice and competitive quotes.