Site safety is often seen in terms of compliance rather than costs—in other words, something you’re forced to do, rather than something you want to do. But you should want to do it! Like all safety rules, site safety legislation is written in blood. Every law you need to follow on site exists because not following has seriously injured or killed people in the past.
This is epitomised by the Site Safety Supervisor Training Scheme, or SSSTS. The course teaches supervisors how to effectively impose and manage site safety, but it’s also a checklist of just about everything that can go wrong on site, and how to avoid it. Here then are just six risks that regularly occur on site, and how SSSTS helps to save lives by protecting against them.
Fall risks
Falls from height are simultaneously one of the most obvious and common risks on a worksite, and also one of the most often ignored. Everyone trusts their footing enough and dislikes fall protection enough to just wing it—until the moment when someone loses balance, slips, and the consequences come crashing home. Slips, trips and falls are all integral to SSSTS and site safety more generally and aren’t just from working at height.
As well as working in elevated areas such as on rooftops, scaffolding, or suspended platforms, falls can also include drops into excavated areas. This means that not only do people need to be properly trained and equipped to work at height, but that any holes at ground level need to be properly screened, with barriers, warning signs and lighting to prevent anyone from accidentally staying too close to them.
Collapse risks
Separate (but related) to the issue of falls is the problem of unstable work surfaces. This can result in a fall—such as fragile roofing panels, glass collapsing, or poorly constructed scaffolding—something that frequently happens with old or poorly maintained industrial buildings, such as warehouses or farm sheds. Much like the previous section, however, it can also occur at ground level.
Large piles of excavated dirt or materials lead to the possibility of edges collapsing under people; or if the pile is large enough, or a landslide occurring that can affect people outside of the worksite. Conversely, areas which have been excavated can collapse under people if they have not been shored up or battered in, and walls can collapse onto people within the excavation. This also occurs with vehicles, which can cause the vehicle to topple over, crushing or otherwise injuring the person inside.
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
PPE is another obvious safety requirement, and one that’s too often ignored or flouted. It’s all good and well while nothing is going wrong, but PPE is there for the very occasional moments where things go wrong. Without it, you can end up losing fingertips, digits, limbs, or worse—not worth it for feeling a little bit more comfortable or saving the odd second per day.
Anyone working without effective gloves, boots, or other protective clothing can lead to potentially life-changing injuries. PPE isn’t just about clothing, however, but also respiratory protective equipment (RPE). In this case, something is going wrong anytime you aren’t wearing it.
A lack of RPE can lead to long-term health complications, including a variety of lung conditions and potentially even cancer. This isn’t just a risk from asbestos or other obviously dangerous materials, but also seemingly innocuous things such as stone dust or cement dust, which can cause microscopic scarring inside your lungs.
Site security
When we think about site safety, we often think in terms of personal safety. But a site supervisor or site manager is responsible for everyone on site—even if they aren’t supposed to be there. The prevention of unauthorised access to a site is important, as people sneaking in could potentially die by misadventure, such as children getting into a site and falling off of things or into things as a result of not knowing the site layout.
Identifying and preventing these risks is as much your responsibility as workers on site, as trespassing is a foreseeable risk so far as you can reasonably prevent it. People scaling fences or actively working around your precautions may fall outside of what is reasonable, but people shouldn’t be able to just walk in.
Falling objects
It isn’t always you falling off something that’s the problem. Things like scaffolding can often overhang or exist within public spaces, and extreme care must be taken to ensure objects cannot fall from scaffolding and exit a site with potential harm to the public. Edge protection must be utilised, and care must be taken to ensure objects do not pose an overt risk of falling.
Whether that means not storing objects at height, not using them at height unless absolutely necessary, not using them near edges, or ensuring that the location and use of tools and other items is carefully tracked, and inventory is checked at the end of a working day. The same goes for falling heavy objects being moved by cranes or other vehicles, which need to be secured properly so they do not fall and lead to crushes.
Vehicle safety
One of the more difficult-to-predict risk factors on a worksite is the presence of vehicles. Different vehicles will pose different issues, and the use of vehicles around a site can pose different risks in different areas. Blind spots for instance can vary depending on the individual vehicle, and be difficult to figure out pre-emptively, while people can fall into a pattern of underestimating the risk of heavy vehicles when working around them on a regular basis.
SSSTS training helps to ensure that any vehicles—permanent or visiting—are suitable for use and have been checked to ensure they have been maintained properly. It also provides the knowledge to ensure that there is good visibility of vehicles from all locations with no blind spots, that low speeds are maintained, and that there are appropriate signals and markings.
Something else that few people think about is the provision of proper lighting, and controls on vehicle access. This not only means which vehicles are allowed to access a site, but where they are allowed to go, with a consideration of traffic flows around a site and where collisions are likely to occur. This can allow for better training and awareness of drivers and workers through toolbox talks, preventing injuries and damage due to vehicle collisions.
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The SSSTS course packs in plenty of safety information over the course of just two days. While always intended to be used in conjunction with other site supervisor training, it’s a foundational aspect of good site supervision—giving supervisors a crucial grounding in all of the safety issues that can arise on a worksite, and what to do to limit the risks to workers.
Interested in taking site supervisor training? Our SSSTS online course allows you to learn at home via Zoom with our experienced and expert trainers. Visit our SSSTS page to learn more about the course, and book your place on an upcoming course today.