Falls from height remain one of the leading causes of workplace fatalities and serious injuries in the UK. Whether you’re working on a crane, a rig, scaffolding or a rooftop, understanding your legal duties and choosing the right fall protection equipment is essential.
Working at height often overlaps with lifting operations, from rigging suspended loads to accessing equipment during proof load testing, so it’s worth understanding alongside your LOLER responsibilities. This guide covers what the regulations require, what your responsibilities are when using harnesses and lanyards, and how to choose between fall restraint and fall arrest.
What Are the Working at Height Regulations?
The Work at Height Regulations 2005 (WAHR) set out the legal duties for anyone who plans, organises or carries out work where a person could fall and be injured. There’s no minimum height threshold – the regulations apply wherever there’s a risk of a fall liable to cause personal injury, whether that’s from a ladder, a platform, or the edge of a structure.
Employers and anyone in control of work at height must ensure the work is properly planned, supervised, and carried out by competent people. Central to this is the hierarchy of control, which requires duty holders to:
- Avoid work at height wherever reasonably possible
- Prevent falls, using an existing safe place of work or the right equipment
- Minimise the distance and consequences of a fall, where the risk can’t be eliminated
Collective protection; measures like guardrails, scaffolding or safety nets that protect everyone at risk must always be considered before personal protective equipment such as harnesses. The full detail is set out by the HSE’s guidance on working at height, which is worth bookmarking as a reference.
What Are Your Responsibilities When Using Harnesses and Lanyards?
If personal fall protection is genuinely needed, harnesses and lanyards only work as part of a properly planned system. Key responsibilities include:
- Suitable equipment for the task – the harness, lanyard and anchor point must be matched to the job, the environment and the individual using them
- Secure, load-rated anchor points – an anchor point must be strong enough to withstand the forces involved in a fall
- Regular inspection – harnesses and lanyards must be checked before use and formally inspected at set intervals, with damaged equipment removed from service immediately
- Training and competence – anyone using fall protection equipment must know how to fit it correctly, connect it properly, and understand its limitations
- A rescue plan – you must have a plan in place to rescue someone quickly if they do fall, rather than relying on the emergency services alone
Getting any of these wrong doesn’t just risk a fall – it can mean the equipment fails to work as intended even when used.
Choosing the Right Equipment: Fall Restraint vs Fall Arrest
This is one of the most misunderstood parts of working at height safety, and the two systems serve very different purposes.
Fall restraint physically stops a worker from reaching a position where they could fall. A harness is connected to a fixed-length lanyard and anchor point set so the worker simply cannot get close enough to an unprotected edge. Because no fall can occur, restraint is the safer option and should always be used ahead of arrest where practical.
Fall arrest allows a fall to begin but stops it before the worker hits a lower level. It’s used when restraint isn’t practical — for example, where a worker genuinely needs to get close to an edge to carry out the task. Fall arrest systems need a secure anchor point positioned above the worker, sufficient clearance below to let the lanyard deploy safely, and a shock-absorbing element to reduce the force of the fall. Because the person does still fall, arrest carries more risk than restraint, including the risk of suspension trauma if a rescue is delayed.
The choice between the two should always come from a proper risk assessment, not personal preference or convenience. If restraint can achieve the same outcome as arrest for a given task, it should be the default choice.
Compliance Across Your Lifting and Height Work
Working at height and lifting operations often happen on the same sites, and the same principles of planning, competence and proper equipment apply to both. If you’re managing LOLER compliance alongside height work, our guide on LOLER Inspections Explained is a useful companion, and our team is always happy to talk through the wider compliance picture for your lifting equipment and testing requirements.
Call us on 01709 223 113 or contact our team online to discuss your lifting and compliance needs.