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Working at Height and Permits

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Grand Shidoshi
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Working at Height and Permits

Post by Safety »

Hi all,

I'm looking at our working at height procedure and permit system, when do you issue a permit to work for working at height?

Roof work = yes
Over 2 metres yes

what about under 2 metres?

Do you issue permits depending on the type of working at height equipment you use and the duration of work?
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ddlh
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Re: Working at Height and Permits

Post by ddlh »

The 2 metre rule was abolished many years ago. If you can fall on ground level or below then the Work at Height Regs apply now.

"Work at height means work in any place where, if there were no precautions in
place, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury. For example
you are working at height if you:
■ are working on a ladder or a flat roof;
■ could fall through a fragile surface;
■ could fall into an opening in a floor or a hole in the ground."
If you think safety is a pain, try a leg fracture.
LittleNell83
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Re: Working at Height and Permits

Post by LittleNell83 »

Hello Safety,

In my previous role I used to use the risk assessments for the task to determine when we used permits to work. We didn't do roof work but all our jobs involved working at height as the company did sewage treatment plant servicing, over large holes, and then there were some sites where the job was on above ground treatment plants.

Any job involving confined entry required a permit to work, then in addition, any job which had a high/ very high risk associated used a permit to work system. These were typically where there was work stretching over the open chambers, repairing the access equipment/ walkways on the above ground treatment plants, and sometimes lifting operations over the open chambers.

I know that is quite a niche area, but the principle could still apply.

Yours,

Nell
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Re: Working at Height and Permits

Post by stephen1974 »

I would say any time you have a contractor come on site you want to have a permit to work scheme in place. If they are a regular contractor, lets say the guys who service your fire alarm twice a year, then they only need to submit it once and you can keep it on file and just check for updates every vear of or couple of years.

If they are one off jobs, always get RAMS before the job starts, preferably a week before (for non emergency work) and then you can issue a permit in advance with any additional instructions you might want to pass on, such as evac procedures, who to contact when they get there and so on.

I find schemes are easier to manage if you apply them to everyone and not try to apply them selectively as this leads to the do I dont I dilemma.
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