80% of scaffold accidents due to manual handling, slips, trips and falls

A report from the National Access & Scaffolding Confederation (NASC) has revealed that 80% of scaffold accidents among its members are due to manual handling, slips, trips and falls from height.

The NASC's 2024 Safety Report revealed that although there were no fatalities among operatives or accidents involving members of the public, manual handling was identified as one of the biggest hazards in the scaffolding industry.

 As a mandatory membership requirement, all contracting members of NASC are required to complete their annual accident returns. Of the 16,667 scaffolding and access workers across 280+ contracting members, there were 28 slips and trips recorded last year, and 16 falls from height. These rates are lower than comparable construction industry accident statistics supplied by the HSE but account for 80% of accidents.

The report breaks down the total number of accidents reported by the age and skill level of the injured operatives and revealed that the majority of injured workers were under the age of 40.

The types of accidents reported makes for interesting reading when broken down by age. Falls from height were mostly in the 31-40 age range (7) followed by the 21-30 age range (4). Similarly, most slips and trips on the same level were in the 21-30 and 31-40 age range (8 and 10 respectively). Manual handling accidents were spread out across most age ranges: 16-20 (2), 21-30 (9), 31-40 (6), 41-50 (4), and 51-60 (4) with only 61+ recording zero manual handling accidents.

Read the full report here.