You're kidding right? 'elf n safety'.

oops elf & safety signs

It can't be just me who thinks this sounds like a mandate from the 'Ministry of Stating The Bleeding Obvious' (Located next to The Ministry of Silly Walks). I hate over-signage and elf & safetyesque patronising messages (such as this hot coffee might be hot etc). This proposed sign sounds like my worst nightmare! Please assure me this is a Friday post an not a serious proposal!!!!!!!!

Well intentioned m, but the A5 booklet probably isn't the best way. Others have been quick to mock, which for me is of some concern. 'Slips ands trips' is up there as one of the leading causes of accident and injury, HSE's "shattered lives" campaign has a fairly high profile and this is a high priority topic for the HSE Inspectorate should they come a-calling. Cover these issues at Induction by all means. Check your own accident stats. Conduct some observations and take the issue back to your employee consultation forum. Get some serious buy-in from your people and your management. Maybe a few posters downloaded from HSE site. You need to consider people tracking in with wet feet when it's raining too. Make sure all the physical aspects you mention (not forgetting the state of the handrails) is captured in pro-forma for your regular formal workplace inspection regime. You have to keep things real, otherwise your employees will desert the stairs in favour of the lifts for fear of being caught by the "stair police"!

Perhaps those who feel this is a wind up topic might find a read of the following research report from 2005 of some interest? http://www.hse.gov.uk/re...hsl_pdf/2005/hsl0510.pdf A couple of copy-text from the report are “Awareness campaigns to implement behavioural changes for stair behaviour is an avenue which deserves further exploration. Lessons can be learnt from private companies who have successfully implemented behavioural changes relating to stair use in their employees.” “To fall down stairs is not only to fall off a cliff, but to fall on rocks below, for the nosing of steps presents a succession of sharp edges” (Templer et al, 1978). This quote depicts how a fall on a staircase may be likened to falling from a great height, but also that injuries may be made more serious by virtue of the bumpy landing that follows.” I also remember the stair rules given by a well known multi-national many years ago and these are also quoted in the report. “There are five stair rules within the organisation, these are: 1. Use lifts if your hands are full 2. Always hold handrails 3. Do not read documents 4. Do not use mobile phones 5. Do not run. I think your proposal to put something together to cover this area is a very sensible approach. Only you can know whether it would need a different method to introduce it because that depends entirely on the H&S culture that you have in the company. I would expect it to be covered by your induction as has been said. However, as with all other matters in the induction that doesn’t mean it can then be forgotten altogether. So I would go ahead using the best means to suit your organisation, P48

A5? More of a stamp than a poster!!

Paramount? Really? Paramount means it's the most important thing. You must work in a very low risk industry. You lot can continue to give health and safety a bad name by telling people how to walk up and down stairs and I'll just stick to the real health and safety stuff thank you.

Claire, if I may assume that you are saying “don’t do this first. there may be other more important things to have sorted and controlled first” then I agree. However your later comments about real H&S suggest something different. I have a long experience of working in very mature H&S cultures where the topic is seen as just another part of risk control. I will accept that in other less mature cultures it needs to be carefully managed but that doesn’t mean it can be ignored. It is misleading to suggest that only those in very low risk sectors can or should concern themselves with such matters. Wherever one trips and or falls on a stairway then the outcomes and any consequences can be and often are no different. For example, some of the most serious injuries I recorded whilst working on an oil refinery resulted from slips and falls on stairways. As to whether one has to “tell people how to walk up or down stairs”. In order to establish any positive culture one has to set out standards and behaviours. As one can see from simple observation in any public or work environment most people do not use stairways in a safe manner. They have learnt that they can get away with doing all sorts of things and not get hurt until........... Thus a change in task method and behaviour may well be needed in order to ensure they behave in a proper manner whilst working for their employer. In fact, in just the same way as they do for many other everyday tasks they undertake. How one achieves that change is dependent on the specific circumstances of the individual employer. I am not suggesting for one moment that this is likely to be “paramount” in a generic sense. I am suggesting that labelling any discussion and management of the topic as “elf n safety” does an equal disservice to H&S.

In all my years I have only once had to investigate a stair accident in the workplace and that was due to faulty edging strips in a public place. I do not consider walking up and down a stairwell (in the context of stairs between floors of a building) as being part of a work activity. Whilst I am fully aware of accident stats of people using stairs (in domestic scenarios too) I do not believe that it is the responsibility of the employer unless related to the condition and suitability of that stairwell. If there are lots of accidents on those stairs I would suggest that it is more down to the inherent properties of that stairwell, or condition of that stairwell. EG, inapproporiate surface, poor edging, poor lighting, poor maintenance or poor cleaning regime. Occasional one off accidents due to human carelessness maybe but lots of accidents then something else is happening IMO. So if you're at the point of having to tell people how to use the stairs because you have so many accidents then you're coming at it from the wrong angle. If someone tries to tell me not to carry a coffee up a flight of stairs, or not to take two stairs at a time and that I must use the handrail provided....well they wouldn't get a pleasant response. Try and treat me like a child and I'll behave like a child.

I came across an old HSE study on stairwell safety that some looking into this area may find useful. www.hse.gov.uk/research/hsl_pdf/2005/hsl0510.pdf

There are two issues here as I see it. First, some things in life are inherently risky and there is little one can do about it ie walking up and down stairs. Second, in all the working environments I have worked in (nuclear, construction, rail, etc) I have never had any concerns or dealings with people falling down stairs. God forbid I ever have to put in controls for people using stairways, I would hang up my hard hat tomorrow. On lighter but similar note, some while ago someone posted an enquiry from an accident claims solicitor regarding a personal injury at work - a person falling down the stairs. The solicitor asked for a RA and evidence of training. The response was 'we do not provide RAs and as for training, you will need to speak with their parents or guardians'.

Whilst in 'general' agreement with Ray's comment, two things immediately spring to mind Firstly, there was some lengthy discussion some time ago on these forums about accidents on stairs involving people having their hands full [with trays of cups of tea] when using stairs and the accidents that had resulted Secondly, from personal experience a few years ago, when a member of staff slipped on the stairs and bounced down half a flight to the landing where he was found sitting somewhat dazed. He was relatively uninjured - backside and ego bruised, [mainly ego!] After the general office hilarity at his expense had subsided, several other people admitted that, over the last few years, they had also slipped on the stairs - but had been too embarrassed to admit it. Whilst we did not 'put controls in place', we did look at whether there were any reasons why the stairs were 'dangerous' [there weren't], and we did add a brief entry to the induction process and sent a general reminder to all staff [email] about the stairs So, whilst I agree that 'controls' may be a step too far [no pun intended] one shouldn't ignore what may be a real problem.

I’d be careful with this one. We banned drinks and other liquids in open containers some years ago following an accident that cost of about £10000. We enforce this rule quite strongly and supply all staff with a lidded drinking cup so that they can take drinks back to their offices. On the other hand I too have heard of the multinational company that insists that staff hold onto hand rails while they walk and own steps. When I first heard of this I thought it was a wind up but apparently this company (a large chemical company) has this rule worldwide and enforces it. My suggestions that this would be the sort of thing that makes H&s look daft fell on deaf ears. On the other hand I do see people walking down and up stairs while texting on their phones and I have even been told of the person trying to use a laptop walking walking down some stairs. I suppose it all depends on your organisation’s culture and response to management initiatives. I think our staff are too cynical for this and we would have to put CCTV in every stairwell to enforce this sort of rule.

Once again, thanks for your comments. I knew the results would be spikey but I did not expect so much polarisation! I accept that the use of stairs is a low priority but the consequences can be high and sometimes people just need a reminder. I suppose that even negative discussion about this in the offices will get people thinking about the issues. I will take on the + and - views and may even submit some kind of link to what I come up with. I like the cartoon ideas, I thought of the swimming pool idea and then read it in a later post. I'll see what I can find in Word's ClipArt. I may even do an animation on YouTube but, of course, that won't make a poster.

After milk bottles, stairs are our most frequent injury source. Two accident book entries in ten years for going up and down stairs. One of them was me. I always run up the stairs, and normally skip some treads in either direction. I don't think people need telling how to negotiate stairs in the safest possible manner, and I don't think it is necesary to always negotiate stairs in the safest possible manner - I have been known to ride a unicycle down (short) flights, though not at work. Has anyone quantitatively examined the dangers of running up stairs with the health benefit of frequent short-duration moderate-intensity exercise through the working day due to always running up the stairs?

If you have a risk and there is evidence of accidents and near misses (or falls) then do a risk assessment that assesses and focuses on the issues in your building and offers good simple guidance which can fit into an induction or tool box talk for 5 minutes.

When new postings appear on this forum there's no obvious way of predicting whether or not they will generate/provoke a lot of responses. In the case of this topic, a fair number of the responses seem to stem from whether or not the responders have experience of dealing with stairway-related accidents or not, or at least information about such accidents. Though I've dealt with relatively few such accidents I think that stairways, an unavoidable feature in many workplaces, have considerable potential for significant injury as regards HOW people use them. Therefore, I can't agree with Clairel's comment at #23 that environment is the most important factor, not the person on the stairs. Surely much of OS&H in its widest sense is concerned with the physical aspects of workplaces, buildings, machinery, etc., plus behavioural aspects, i.e. how people interact (wittingly or unwittingly) with the physical aspects. Take fork lift trucks for example. Good design and maintenance of such trucks is important, as is the design and layout of the workplaces and routes they use, and equally the training and behaviour of their operators. There's also a need to keep this matter in perspective. Stairways are so common that some people understandably think that safe use of them is a mundane topic, especially when compared with workplaces like nuclear power stations or North Sea oil platforms where activities and situations with potentially massive risks understandably and rightly get the most attention and resources to minimise such risks. Even so, it is appropriate for employers to try and influence how people use stairways, even though it surely is far from reasonably practicable to use observers or CCTV to identify stairway mis-users and tackle them. Ron Hunter at #8 makes a very valid point about stairways near external doorways becoming hazardous when their steps are made slippery by moisture being tracked in on footwear from outside during wet weather. Employers with such stairways ought to have dust/moisture trap mats/carpeting just inside the doorways so as to try and control the stair slip hazard by physical means as much as possible. However, such physical control can become ineffective in cases where the mats become saturated with moisture because lots of people use the stairways and/or the wet weather continues for a long time. Therefore, stairway users may well need to be told/reminded that stairways may become more slippery than usual during wet weather and thus merit extra care. For people like myself who tend to run up and down stairs, such extra care means not running at such times. Also, HSE might have an angle on stairway safety. While visiting a HSE office a few years ago I was intrigued to see an A4 size poster on a stairway I was using and took a photo, a somewhat mediocre one, of it, partly because I was still getting acquainted with a digital camera (one of my best tools for OS&H). The poster comprised a very simple cartoon with 4 figures running up/down 4 stairways interlinked in the style of the famous artist M C Escher, with a fifth figure shown plunging upside down from one of the stairways. Underneath was the advice "For your safety, please hold onto handrail". Perhaps the poster was devised locally because its heading was "Health and Safety Notice" which I thought was notably uninspiring. No doubt some forum users could think of alternative and inspiring headings. Finally for now, here's a suggestion as a development of this topic: Why don't those of us with school connections (professionally or as parents of school age kids) suggest to schools, especially primary schools, that they hold competitions for pupils to devise a poster about stair safety? The posters could include aspects which can make stairs unsafe and also how ways of tackling the hazards. It seems that some children are more perceptive about such matters than adults might expect. Also, the posters would provide an opportunity for teachers to conduct interactive discussions with their classes about stair safety. If such competitions resulted in a reasonable proportion of today's kids having some grasp of stairway safety, then perhaps in the long term there might be less need for employers to consider trying to influence employees and others about such a matter!

Clairel - thanks for your comments above - fair point about the length of some of my posts, so no offence perceived on my part. Sometimes I just get carried away about different points regarding some topics. Also, perhaps I'm heeding a semi-conscious desire to limit my tally of posts to avoid being classified as a super duper forum user! However, I can't agree about H&S being a "dry subject", and certainly not for regular forum participants who either work in H&S or have a significant interest in it. Part of the art/skill of working in H&S surely is making the subject interesting/relevant to others. This includes trying to understand how others perceive or misperceive it. I could also add... but won't !

Couldn't agree more mate!!!

For what it's worth I'm firmly with Claire with this one. Health and safety has a very poor image (and it's a dry subject for most) and I see my role as a practitioner to try and engage people to work safely most of the time. I, strangely enough, tend to focus on significant risks - the ones which might kill people. I also accept that if a perceived trivial risk is the main cause of injuries at work, then it is incumbent upon that person to manage it as they see fit. People talking on the phone, texting, using a laptop, carrying a tray of drinks...do not need training or advice in how to use the stairs. They know better but are happy not to use a handrail. Just as people know when they are driving a vehicle they should not use a phone, text, use their sat nav...