SLIP OR TRIP: HOWEVER YOU FALL IT MAY BE AVOIDABLE

[SLIPS, TRIPS AND FALLS are often seen as minor incidents, or even funny. In truth, they are a significant cause of serious injuries and fatalities in the workplace, public spaces and the home. In 2021/22, slips, trips and falls accounted for 30% of all non-fatal reportable workplace injuries. There are several challenges which can make investigating those incidents –and correctly managing risk – difficult.

• When describing a fall, the terms ‘slip’ and ‘trip’ are often used interchangeably to describe a loss of balance. Slips and trips have different root causes and each will require different controls to be implemented in order to prevent falls.

• When investigating a fall it is easy to assume that the sole root cause is human error. Although all falls will involve an error by the pedestrian in maintaining a safe walking gait, the likelihood of that error is influenced by a range of environmental and task-based factors. Assuming that a fall is purely due to human error without identifying those additional root causes prevents an organisation learning from the incident and making relevant improvements to prevent similar falls in the future.

• Falls are typically seen as simple incidents. However, while the solutions required to prevent slips, trips and falls are often simple, without good root cause analysis that considers all the risk factors it is difficult to identify a suitable intervention that will genuinely reduce risk. That is made more difficult by the poor standard tests which are in common use for assessing the slip resistance of flooring and footwear, and often lead to inappropriate solutions being specified. The causes of slip, trips and falls have been the topic of many scientific studies and understanding the science helps to provide a more robust and reliable assessment of risk and identify appropriate interventions to prevent falls. Examples of the important considerations for slip, trips and stair falls are:

Slips

The key contributing factors to slips are presented in the Health and Safety Executive’s slip potential model, which is illustrated below.

Minimum toe clearance (MTC) is defined as the minimum vertical distance between the lowest point under the front part of the foot and the ground during the mid-swing phase of pedestrian gait. Understanding MTC helps to determine the risk posed by an underfoot obstacle.

In addition, local lighting levels and the visibility of the hazard, as determined by light reflectance value contrast, as well as the age and visual acuity of the pedestrian, will all influence the risk of trips.

Stair falls

A fall on stairs, particularly on descent, often leads to serious injury and stair falls cause many fatalities each year.

Understanding the tribology of the foot-floor interface with different contaminants is critical in making a robust assessment of slip risk. That requires appropriate information from a relevant test when assessing flooring, footwear or both. Human factors will also play an important role, especially in the efficacy of the cleaning process.

Trips

There are two common factors that contribute to trips: they are an obstacle in the walking route and a failure by the pedestrian to clear the obstacle with their foot – which is influenced by the size of the obstacle and whether they have seen it.

Falls on stairs are often seen as purely human error. In reality, however, stair design has a huge influence on the likelihood of someone making a mistake when using the stair. Human behaviour is hard to control, but good stair design reduces the risk of falls for all stair users. Critical areas of stair design include:

• The dimensions of the stair

• The consistency of the dimensions

• The design of the treads

• The availability, design and visibility of

• handrails

Slips, trips and falls frequently cause serious injury. While the solutions to minimise risk are often simple, a robust understanding of the root causes is needed in order to identify appropriate controls. There is a lot of misinformation in the public domain from standards and ‘expert consultants’ that can make the process more difficult. q