COVID-19 – Guidance for Scaffolding Operations

Most in the scaffolding industry will now be aware that construction sector appears to be stirring after several weeks of sleep, caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Little has changed in terms of the virus itself, with the latest statistics generally suggesting that the number of deaths caused by the virus has started to plateau, which is what the experts say is expected, prior to an overall reduction in those numbers. The UK remains in lockdown and only last week (16 April), the Government announced an extension to the current restrictions, and this will see them enforced until at least 07 May.

What has changed recently is the guidance available to those operating in the construction sector. This has been in the form of general construction guidance issued by the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), who have issued several revisions of their ‘Site Operating Procedures‘ guidance, which now stands at revision 3.  Additionally, the National Access and Scaffolding Confederation has released their own COVID-19 guidance, ‘Guidance for Scaffolding Operations During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic’ and this contains some of the guidance produced by CLC, but more in the way of guidance for Scaffolders.

On an increasing basis, we are being asked by clients to assist with risk assessments for a return to scaffolding activity, and as a result of this, we have produced a COVID-19 Scaffolding guidance document, and a COVID-19 risk assessment, both of these outline the control measures that we believe should be applied to scaffolding activity carried out during the pandemic and both are based on Government guidelines, which remain unchanged.

SIMIAN customers requiring assistance with working during the pandemic should contact us via hello@simian-risk.com.