28.09.2012

Mandatory accident reporting

As of January 1st 2013, IPAF rental company members in the UK will be required to report any known aerial lift accidents involving their staff on the IPAF accident database (www.ipaf.org/accident).

The move to make accident reporting a condition of IPAF membership for UK rental companies was agreed at the first meeting of the IPAF UK Country Council and subsequently ratified by IPAF’s international Council.

Peter Douglas, chairman of the IPAF UK Country Council, who has been leading the accident reporting campaign, said: “We need to make the industry safer. Go to the IPAF website and report accidents. The data collected will help indicate the most common high risk behaviours. And if we can reduce those risky behaviours, we will gradually reduce the number of fatal and serious accidents.”

“The initial mandate is for UK rental companies to report all lost time incidents for their employees,” added Douglas. “But all members are strongly encouraged to get on board and report all accidents, near misses and contractor incidents they are aware of. The more information we have, the better we will be armed to reduce accidents in our industry.”

IPAF technical officer Chris Wraith added: “Companies who commit to report accidents at the IPAF database will be able to confidentially record data and create their own register of accidents. The system requires companies to ‘sign off’ monthly on their accident records. In return, a dashboard feature analyses the company data in a graphical format, providing a management tool to monitor safety performance. Individual companies will be able to compare their safety performance against aggregated results from across all rental company members and recognised industry benchmarks. IPAF’s accident reporting system gives the industry the means to comprehensively collect and analyse accident data and at the same time provide a valuable management tool to improve safety in the workplace.”

All manufacturers, rental companies, contractors and users are encouraged to report any known fatal and serious accidents involving MEWPs worldwide at www.ipaf.org/accident

Vertikal Comment

This is a very positive mood and one of several initiatives that could really give IPAF membership teeth. There is no real reason though why it should be limited to UK rental companies, but it is a very good start and something we have supported from the beginning.

IPAF needs now to quickly extend this to all members rental and manufacturing the industry needs to take note of a point that new IPAF board director Andy Studdert of NES Rentals made at the IPAF summit about how the airline industry really benefits from being an open book where accidents cannot be hidden and supressed as they all too often are within the construction industry.

A very positive step forward