Posted By G Robertson Good afternoon OSH Forum. Can anyone confirm that the HSE have said a handrail is an appropriate point to which a safety harness can be attached? I have a situation where there is a gap on an overhead crane gantry. There is a design change raised to enable a permanent guardrail to be installed, however as an interim measure I am asking that all maintenance staff use a safety harness if they transit this area, can the guardrail be used as an attachment point? Regards in advance.

Posted By William it would need to support 5 times the body weight of the person falling due to the shock loading when a fall occurs. It would also need to be regularly inspected to ensure it can cope with this which i personally think would be every 6 months as it would come under LOLER and the requirements of inspection for equipment to lift people. On the other hand though would this be reasonably practicable to do?

Posted By David AB Thomas As a starting point, I would assume that a handrail is not a suitable anchor for fall arrest. Clause 16.2.1 of BS8437 states, "Anchors should be unquestionably reliable. It is essential that they have an adequate margin of strength and stability to withstand the dynamic and static forces that could be applied to them in service. A safety factor of 2.0 should be applied when calculating the required static strength of an anchor device in a personal fall protection system. Thus, for a personal fall protection system that could be called upon to arrest a fall, for single person use an anchor device with a minimum static strength of 12 kN should normally be used ...". You may also want to have a look at the minimum static strength requirment in BS EN 795. Clause 16.4.1 of BS 8437 covers the anchor requirements for work reatraint - a handrail may well be suitable. Anchor points are not subject to LOLER (unless used for rope access) - although PUWER may apply.

Posted By David AB Thomas SIR15 is 'time expired'. I'd recommend looking at BS EN 13374; although this specifies requirements for energy absorption, in Joules. The characteristic load due to the impact load arising from fall arrest is usually considerd to be 6kN (although some energy absorbers will perform better than this).

Posted By peter gotch David. Fascinated to know what 'time expired' means. I can still download it from Technical Indexes and HSE have not come up with a replacement [nor could they in a trial where this was a key standard cited as part of the defence evidence] Incidentally, the equivalent OSHA standard in the US is 1926.451(g)(4)(vii) Each toprail or equivalent member of a guardrail system shall be capable of withstanding, without failure, a force applied in any downward or horizontal direction at any point along its top edge of at least 100 pounds (445 n) for guardrail systems installed on single-point adjustable suspension scaffolds or two-point adjustable suspension scaffolds, and at least 200 pounds (890 n) for guardrail systems installed on all other scaffolds. So 0.7kN compares relatively closely with 0.89KN across the Pond, especially if you consider relative population weights. Regards, Peter