NW BT Health And Safety Co-ord Raises Concerns Over Working From Heights In Industry

At its meeting earlier this month, the NW BTU Health and Safety Co-ord expressed concern over all work at height by any company and worker rescue systems, given the Government’s continued attack on health and safety legislation and the commercialisation of the HSE.

As a result, and with the help of Steve Mann, from CWU’s Health and Safety department an informal visit with Mike Mullen from the HSE has been arranged.

Mike is the HSE’s lead for all the utilities nationally and answers to the HSE at Board level.

The co-ord have also raised the issue with BT in relation to The Pole Emergency Recovery procedure changes they wish to make to a procedure which the co-ord believes should be a 24 hr recovery procedure.

Outside of normal working hours the fall back position is to rely on the emergency services, in the event a pole emergency recovery was required.

Derek Maylor, Chair of the co-ord, says in his paper written in response to the situation within BT on behalf of the NW Engineering Safety Committee:

“The Work at Height Regulations 2005 Regulation 4 (1) & (2) are specific & absolute and state: "Every employer [in this case BT Group / Openreach] shall ensure that all work at height includes planning for emergencies and rescue." BT Group / Openreach have to comply with this regulation exactly and there is no room for judgement or changing it in any way. There is no flexibility”

He also understands the business costs involved and clarified the co-ord’s position:

“We are not saying that extra staff should be available to affect a rescue 24/7. The idea that “pole emergency recovery procedure does not provide 24/7 cover” sounds quite rationale and we agree with such cover being both extremely costly and frequently unnecessary.

However, we are saying that trained competent staff should be available to affect a rescue as and when required; this being whenever we have an engineer out in the field that is expected to work up a pole. Working hours/times are wholly irrelevant as the issue is when an engineer is up a pole (or above ground). BT / Openreach cannot, because of legislation, rely on the emergency services as first point of call in the event of an emergency. Ceasing such cover at (for example) at 6pm would then make the emergency services the first point of call from that time to the staring time the following morning (for example) at 8am.”

It is expected that further discussions between the CWU and BT on this matter will be required before the issues can be resolved.

Source: Unionsafety / Derek Maylor

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