Falls from height still kill and seriously injure workers every year, and a great many of those falls start on a ladder. Figures from the Health and Safety Executive, or HSE, show the same two failures again and again: the wrong access equipment was chosen, or the right equipment was used badly.

Nobody should use a ladder or stepladder at work until their employer has given them the training, instruction and information they need to use it safely.

This course is a practical guide to working safely with leaning ladders and stepladders. It is written for employers, managers and supervisors, and for the people who do the climbing.

Where a point covers both types of equipment, we say ladders and stepladders. Where something applies to only one of them, we name that one on its own.

Everything you learn here applies at home as well. In fact, far more ladder accidents happen at home than at work, so the same rules are worth following wherever you climb.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain why safe use of ladders and stepladders matters at work.
• Describe what the law expects of employers and of the people who use ladders.
• Take part in a risk assessment for ladder and stepladder work.
• Carry out a pre-use check, and know what a detailed inspection covers.
• Store, carry and set up ladders and stepladders correctly.
• Climb and work from them safely.

Work at height means work in any place where, if no precautions were taken, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury. That includes work above ground level, work near an edge or an opening, and even work at ground level next to an excavation or a hole.

There is no minimum height. The definition is about the harm a fall could cause, not about a particular number of metres. Using a ladder or a stepladder at work is always work at height.

Many people think a fall from a stepladder or the bottom of a ladder is nothing to worry about. It is not. Even a fall from one or two metres can cause broken bones, serious head injuries, or worse.

Many serious ladder injuries happen at quite low heights, often during quick jobs that seemed too small to plan. Every ladder task deserves the same care, however short the climb.

A common myth is that health and safety law has banned ladders. It has not. The Work at Height Regulations 2005 allow ladders to be used.

The condition is that a risk assessment shows a ladder is a sensible choice. That means the work must be low risk and short duration. Where it is, a ladder or stepladder can be the right tool for the job.

When the equipment suits the job, and the people using it are trained, the benefits show quickly:

• Fewer accidents. A fall can cost a worker months of earnings, and some falls end a career.
• Lower costs. When someone is injured, cover must be found and projects slip.
• The legal duty to protect workers is met.
• Better productivity, because competent workers get more done.
• Better morale, because staff can see that safety genuinely matters.

Trace a ladder injury back to its cause, and you will usually find one of these:

• Using a ladder when the work could have been done another way, or with safer equipment.
• Choosing the wrong type of ladder for the task.
• Climbing equipment that is already damaged.
• Standing on the top rungs or the top steps.
• Leaving the ladder unsecured.
• Overreaching to the side, instead of climbing down and moving the ladder. This is one of the most common causes of falls.
• Working in strong wind or heavy rain, or with muddy rungs or unsuitable footwear.

When investigators trace a ladder injury back to its cause, they seldom find just one mistake. A worker who chooses a ladder that is too short is also likely to overreach. A ladder that has not been secured is often standing on poor or muddy ground as well. Someone hurrying to finish a job in bad weather may also be wearing unsuitable footwear. Any single item on the list of unsafe practices is enough to put someone in hospital, but they rarely occur alone, and together they multiply the risk.

The most effective point to break this chain is before the work begins. Asking whether the risk could be designed out, either by not working at height at all or by using equipment better suited to the job, often removes several of these errors at once.

Ladders and stepladders are used across a wide range of work, including:

• Construction, roofing and glazing.
• Getting into and out of excavations.
• Building maintenance, window and gutter cleaning, and painting and decorating.
• Electrical, plumbing and building services work.
• Farming, forestry and tree surgery.
• Street works, such as cabling and lighting.
• Shops and warehouses.

The range of jobs that involve ladders and stepladders is very broad, and the pattern of use varies a great deal from one trade to the next. For some workers, such as decorators, roofers or maintenance staff, a ladder is essential kit that is in use on most working days. For others, it comes out of the store only now and then, perhaps to change a light fitting or reach a high shelf.

Both groups face the same hazards. The everyday user can become too familiar with the equipment and start taking shortcuts, while the occasional user may have forgotten how to check it or set it up. That is why everyone who might use a ladder at work, however rarely, needs the same training before they climb.

This case is based on a real prosecution. A worker for a roofing firm was replacing guttering and soffit boards at a primary school. He was working from a ladder propped against a wall.

The ladder slipped away beneath him, and he fell about three metres to the ground. He fractured his thigh bone, his pelvis, his elbow and his arm. He spent sixteen days in hospital, and needed surgery to fix a bolt into his hip and a metal plate onto his arm.

The investigation found that neither the company nor its director had planned the work properly. The job needed both hands, so the worker could not keep three points of contact. A safe working platform, such as scaffolding, was needed.

The company was convicted and fined. The director was prosecuted personally and received a custodial sentence. The business could not survive the penalty and closed.

In Great Britain, the same failures fall under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Work at Height Regulations 2005, enforced by the HSE. Directors can be prosecuted personally.