CDM 2007 and in-use design issues

Under CDM 2007, designers need to ensure that the buildings they design comply with relevant sections of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. Exactly how this is undertaken will vary and will depend upon an intimate understanding of the use to which the area under consideration will be put. Stephen Taylor RIBA, Principal Specialist Inspector at the Health and Safety Executive, clarifies the responsibility of the designer.

During the early stages of a project design it is likely that designers will not have access to detailed knowledge available to managers of the workplaces they are creating. But as the project progresses the responsibility for the environment being created lies firmly with the designer. The more there is an understanding of how the user of the building intimately interacts with all the building elements and fabric contained within it, the less likely will there be a compromise with the health and safety of that user.

Workplace "in-use" hazards involve a far wider range of hazards than those encountered in the building process. However, identifying such hazards and managing their risks is done in exactly the same way.

There are many generic and specific workplace hazards and designers must think through the potential hazards in each situation. They include:

• The physical environment such as noise, lighting, vibration and temperature
• Maintenance activities involving electricity, hot water and piped gases etc
• The use and interaction of traffic with people, manual handling, use of doors, windows and glazing systems, industrial processes, lifts and escalators
• Working at height involving access equipment of all types, unprotected edges and fragile surfaces
• Slips and trips.

This last category – slips and trips - account for almost 40% of all accidents reported annually to the Health and Safety Executive and to Local Authorities. Most of the incidents involving a slip occur through a combination of inappropriate flooring and surface contamination. A smooth or polished floor surface in the presence of either wet or dry contamination is a lethal combination.

The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 explicitly referred to in CDM2007 require that anyone procuring a floor surface must undertake a risk assessment to identify if that area might be foreseeably contaminated and to apply a suitably slip resistant surface if that is the case. Most areas within a building will only be affected by wet or dry contamination on a very infrequent basis and it is the intention of these regulations to concentrate design efforts on high contamination risk areas such as entrances, kitchens and food preparation areas, laundries and utility rooms, toilets and changing rooms etc., such that by good design slip accidents can be reduced or even eliminated.

The Health and Safety Executive has carried out numerous research projects to identify the slip resistance characteristics of generic floor surfaces using both wet and dry contaminants. They have also developed, in conjunction with the UK Slip Resistance Group, a robust testing protocol using industry accepted testing instruments and published the results as research projects on the HSE website. Much of the information from this and other research is included in HSE Guidance documents.

The research has also been used in the production of C652 Safer surfaces to walk on, published by the Construction Industry Research Information Association (CIRIA) co-sponsored by HSE, Rail Safety and Standards Board, London Underground Ltd, the British Council of Shopping Centres and others. NBS were part of the Steering Group that helped in its writing. The publication is aimed at designers and procurers of flooring and will be updated and released in the near future.

Stephen Taylor RIBA
Principal Specialist Inspector
Construction Engineering Specialist Team
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Bootle
Merseyside.

Related NBS information:

Articles:

• CDM and other health and safety legislation
• Corporate responsibility: the duties and responsibilities under the new CDM regulations
• Specifying new floors – crucial roles of the manufacturer and supplier

Selected links:

• Floors, floorings, ceilings
• Health and safety on site

Written July 2009

 

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