Case Studies By Industry

Slips, trips, and falls are real events that occur frequently and for a host of reasons ranging from snow and ice, faulty railings, flooring issues, design flaws, and carelessness or even reckless behaviour.

An insurance claim on a slip, trip, or fall can lead to expensive claims litigation, lost work time, and increased insurance and operating costs.

Use the Correct Floor Care Products and Program to Prevent Accidents

Half of all slip-related falls happen because of unsafe or unclean floors, according to the National Floor Safety Institute. People slip on greasy restaurant floors, trip on a grape left lying in the grocery’s produce aisle, or fall when they don’t see a “wet floor” sign on a marble floor. Proper floor care and footwear products could prevent some of these accidents.

Have a Floor Safety and Footwear Program in Place

• Employees should use the correct footwear and deal with spills promptly, properly mark wet areas, and always be on the lookout for potential hazards.
• Managers should frequently inspect working and walking areas to identify environmental and equipment hazards that could cause slips, trips and falls. Immediate corrective action should be taken.
• All slips, trips and falls, with or without injury, should be reported, recorded and thoroughly investigated. Corrective action to prevent such a repeat occurrence should be taken immediately.
• It’s wise to have regular meetings to discuss floor safety. This is a time to consider procedural or product changes, and to look at slip-and-fall incidents and how they can be avoided in the future.

Not only can a good floor safety and footwear program prevent accidents, it can also be an important tool in defending against litigation. A single claim can cost a company thousands of Euros. While many claims are legitimate, plenty of others are fraudulent. Either way, a company that can demonstrate that it has a thorough safety program will likely fare better in court than a company with no such program.

Successful Measures to Prevent Slips and Falls in the Workplace

By Tony Clark MIOSH, MIIRSM
Health & Safety Officer for Prosper De Mulder Ltd, Doncaster, UK

Prosper De Mulder Ltd, a family-owned Group of private companies whose principle activities are animal by product processing, the production of materials for the pet food & edible food industries and renewable energy processes, has a major facility and Head Office in Doncaster, UK.

The floor surfaces throughout the site have been generally slippery due to the oils and fats produced our processes. There has been and still is a maintenance and cleaning program in place for the floors.

Whilst attending a Food Safety Forum meeting, I observed Shoes for Crews footwear. I made contact with SFC Europe and several items of footwear were ordered for trial (safety boots & shoes and safety wellingtons).

A study was made into the accident causation from the period 1980, until the present day (2001).
The main causation highlighted was Slips, Trips & Falls (mainly slips) accounting for approximately 68% of the reported personal injury accidents.

Trial of Shoes For Crews Footwear

Over an initial six-month period the site introduced several types of SFC’s footwear. The initial trial highlighted that there was a 100% reduction in slip related accidents to all wearers (based on those issued with SFC’s), an improvement in wearer comfort and satisfaction. All of these factors resulted in the wearers having more confidence, improving productivity and better morale.

The results 55 months on:

• We seen a major reduction in personal injury accidents (no slip related accidents reported by any person wearing SFC’s),
• The SFC’s perform better than all other previously issued footwear (in most cases lasting up to five times longer).
• Major reductions in personal injury claims and purchasing costs (SFC’s may seem expensive but given all the other benefits, they work out very cost effective.

The PDM Group now issue SFC’s as the standard safety footwear (further trials have been carried out on other footwear to compare with the SFC’s, but none have performed equally as well).

The Company has an on-going programme of issuing SFC’s, installing anti-slip covers and re-applying anti-slip properties to existing floors.

Tony Clark MIOSH, MIIRSM
Health & Safety Officer