Slips and Trips at Work

Slips and trips cause thousands of injuries every year in Australia. The most frequent are musculoskeletal injuries along with cuts and fractures. Slips occur when a person loses their footing due to wearing the wrong footwear or walking on floors that are slippery due to grease, water or other solutions. Trips occur when a person stumbles over objects on a surface. This could be uneven edges in the floor, creases, loose mats or cables. Falls result from either a trip or a slip but can also result from people losing their footing from steps, curbs or other elevated areas. Businesses have a responsibility to minimise the risk of trips, slips and falls occurring at their workplace. They need to carefully identify risks in the workplace and understand the damage that those risks could cause. They should then introduce measures to control these risks and continually evaluate how well these measures are working. Source: http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/swa/about/publications/Documents/659/Slips%20and%20Trips%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf