Posted By Brian McMillan
I attended a recent training seminar for the education sector that had a very interesting theme of avoiding slips trips and falls. It was presented by some of HSE's experts working at HSL.

The importance of flooring material selection was obviously very important but more importantly seems to be an obvious lack of cleaning ability of some cleaners. It would seem that many of the problems are down to poor training in what is a very staff transient area of work.

It was proved that even the slightest hint of dampness on a smooth surface can reduce friction by massive amounts. In real terms this means that the cleaner who is called upon to clear up a spill in an area of 300mm square usually ends up mopping a massive area making the whole area a death trap.

Add to this the comlications associated with the floor not being clean in the first place due to lack of hot water, unsuitable detergents, poor cleaning methods etc and you have an accident waiting to happen.

To illustrate this I noticed a bunch of flowers being lifted from inside a bucket of water on a display in a well know supermarket. The subsequent trail of drips on the polished floor led to one person slipping. The cleaner was called and promptly mopped an area at least fifty times greater than the spill covered and left the area after not bothering to put out the wet floor signage etc.

The end result was the area being closed for a period of approximately 30 minutes after several more people fell over. Had the original spillage been dry wiped it is likely that the first incident would not have occured. If the flower display had been provided with some form of waterproof bag for flowers to be placed into between display and check out even the cleaner would not have been needed.

Smooth tiles certainly do not perform that well in the wet. That said the addition of grease and grime will worsen adhesion qualities many times over.

Posted By Frank Hallett
A very perceptive observation by AIB.

The truth is that a vast number of pre-existing potential events are, quite literally, built in by the designers! This then leaves their client [who should know better but frequently has to rely upon the perceived greater expertise of their appointed design team] in a position of vulnerability from the very start and puts the H,S,F&E consultant in the position of continually having to respond to statements such as "What's the problem, the designer(s) said it was OK".

Of course we are then seen as spending the clients money unnecessarily.

Frank Hallett

Posted By Bill Parkinson
I have also been to the HSE's workshop on slips (check out their web site) and one of the things which was highlighted was the tests which are currently done. So called sled tests are questionable as the HSE demonstrated that using a sled test rig the floor measured as more slip resistant when wet than dry !! When the pendulum test was done it showed that the slip resistance had all but disappeared !

You can use a "kenny" (was told it was so named as it looks like kenny from the TV programme South Park)which costs about £ 800 and this gives a surface roughness which you can use to feed into the HSE SAT tool to help with the assessment.

One thing also demonstrated was that dry contamination on flooring can be just as if not more of a problem (talc for instance).

You can get more information from the HSE Watch Your Step Campaign on their website or contact HSE Labs as they have a number of people doing a lot of research. As one of the priority sectors for the HSE we have been required to submit an action plan on how we are tackling the issue of slips and trips which includes flooring (selection of covering, maintenance etc.).

Bill