Horizon Platforms Blog

A practical safety guide for managers and health and safety leads

Scissor lifts and cherry pickers (boom lifts) are among the most versatile and widely used pieces of access equipment to enable safe work at height. But with that versatility comes responsibility. These machines are heavy and powerful, and unfortunately, every year, accidents occur that could be avoided with better planning, training, or daily processes and procedures. For project managers and Health and Safety leads, understanding the key dos and don’ts of scissor lift and cherry picker use isn’t just best practice, it’s a legal and moral obligation.

This guide covers the essentials to help you keep your teams safe, stay compliant, and run your projects without costly delays or incidents for you, your team or your families…

Mobile Elevating Work Platforms (MEWPs), also known as access platforms, are vital for safe work at height, but what happens if the platform fails, or other factors leave people stranded at height?

Even with well-maintained machines and experienced MEWP operators, there’s always a small chance of machine faults, operator errors or medical emergencies causing someone to be stuck at height on a MEWP.

Health and safety are important in any workplace, and working at height is far from an exception. The HSE defines working at height as ‘work in any place where, without precautions, a person might fall a distance liable to cause personal injury’. Therefore, work at height is undeniably risky. However, with our essential steps, you can ensure your work at height task is as safe and compliant as possible.

In the UK, we are fortunate to have some of the strictest health and safety laws around the world which has given us a strong track record in reducing the overall number of accidents which happen in workplaces. As we work in the access platform hire industry, at Horizon Platforms, health and safety is our number one priority. So, we wanted to look at the impact that changes to health and safety regulation has had on the number of reported injuries and accidents across sectors.

As we move toward summer and warmer days are (hopefully) on the way for those of us in the UK, our health and safety experts wanted to highlight the importance of keeping safe when working in hot weather outdoors.