| By :
Alison Withers
Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers Unless a business invests without investing heavily in Health and Safety training and specialised equipment these days Safety laws make it almost impossible to risk allowing your own staff to undertake high level cleaning. It makes sense, therefore to have high level cleaning done by a specialist industrial cleaning service, a professional contractor with the right equipment and training in doing it safely. Methods of high level cleaning vary from area to area, but the main objective is to create a programme of work that will maintain overheads and high level structures in a condition where dust and residues do not accumulate to a level where product contamination or infestation can occur. It may involve using highly trained specialist rope access teams for cost effective solutions to the cleaning of areas that otherwise are only accessible by the construction of fixed scaffold systems, which not only adds time, but also introduces the risk of potential cross contamination from wooden decking boards and building site debris. It may not seem like high level cleaning is an essential but a recent trading standards inspection of a small coffee bar in the East of England shows that not only surface cleaning, equipment safety and food handling hygiene is inspected. Its report also highlighted that "the high level cleaning was very poor with a large build up of dirt and dust particularly to the suspended wooden frame in the ceiling area of the unit" and recommended that it needed to be cleaned and included in the regular cleaning schedule. The 2005 Work at Height Regulations are designed to help prevent the serious injuries, and even deaths, that happen each year as a result of a fall from a height in a workplace. They are aimed at those who control the work of others - people like construction site and facilities managers and even the self employed. In April 2007, the regulations were amended to also include people who might engage in height related activities such as in teambuilding exercises or in any other kind of sport or recreation which might involve operating at height. Regulation 3 of the Management of Health abnd Safety at Work regulations outlines the employer's responsibility to make sure any work to be carried out at a height has been properly planned, is fully supervised and is only carried out by people competent to do it. They must make sure staff have had comprehensive training and been given all the information needed to carry out their tasks. Wherever possible an employer should investigate whether a particular role could be performed without the need to work at height, first of all. An example might be a long handled tool for cleaning office windows. If not, they must take all the steps needed to make the area as safe as possible and to install any protective equipment which would help to prevent falls from occurring, such as safety barriers, guard rails, soft landing strips and nets.
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