A risk assessment for working at height is a risk assessment with the questions in a fixed order, because the HSE's work at height law page, cited below, says the purpose of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 is to prevent death and injury caused by a fall from height, and the way to prevent a fall is to ask first whether the work needs height at all. Can it be done from the ground? If not, what prevents the fall: a guarded platform, a tower, edge protection? If a fall cannot be prevented, what minimises it: fall arrest, nets? And who rescues whom, how, within minutes? The risk assessment template on this site prints the rows, free.
Can it be done from the ground
Extending tools, lowering the work, doing it from inside: the first control for a fall is not working at height. The assessment records that the question was asked and why the answer was no. It is the row an approver looks for on a height RAMS and the one most often missing.
Prevent the fall
A platform with guardrails, a tower tied and inspected, edge protection installed before the work reaches the edge, a MEWP. Collective measures that protect everyone without their action come before personal ones. The row names the measure and the step in the method where it goes up.
Minimise the fall
Where prevention is not reasonably practicable, fall arrest with anchors that will hold, or nets, with the distance and the consequences reduced. And the rescue plan: a person hanging in a harness needs to be brought down within minutes, by people on site, with equipment on site. A height assessment with fall arrest and no rescue plan is incomplete.
The rest of the assessment
The dropped object and the exclusion zone, the fragile surface, the weather, the ladder if one is justified for short low-risk work, the equipment inspection. Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, cited below, requires every employer to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of their employees, and regulation 3(6) requires an employer with five or more employees to record the significant findings and any group of employees especially at risk. DailyLogDesk Pro keeps the assessment against the job with the method that applies it.
Questions people ask about risk assessment for working at height
Is a ladder allowed?
For short-duration, low-risk work where it can be secured and used properly; the assessment is where that justification is written.
Who inspects the tower or the scaffold?
A competent person, with the inspection recorded; the assessment names the inspection as a control and the method places it before the work.
Is the template free?
Yes, without an account.