PASSENGER LIFTS - 13.01.2022

Resident killed in faulty passenger lift

In January 2017 a care home resident died in a faulty passenger lift. Although the lift maintenance company had identified the problem which caused it, the lift remained in service. What managerial mistakes were behind the accident?

What happened?

On the day of the accident a care home employee had entered the lift on the first floor with 85-year-old resident, Kenneth Bardsley. But a few moments after the lift began its decent, it stopped. This was caused by a damaged edge to the lift car door. It snagged on the lintel plate of the ground floor landing entrance for a while, until the weight of the lift car caused the materials to buckle. The car then dropped four metres to the basement. Mr Bardlsey was killed and the care worker sustained minor injuries.

Investigation

The HSE found that the damaged door had been reported to the service company, Lancs and Cumbria Lifts UK Ltd (L). Engineers had attended immediately but the lift was not taken out of use. On delving further into L’s working practices there were concerns about maintenance standards and engineering practices. L pleaded guilty to breaching s.3(1) Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 . The company was fined £14,400 and ordered to pay £45,000 in costs.

Badly managed

The Serendipity Care Home was located in Manchester and owned by Premium Care Ltd (P). It went into liquidation and evaded prosecution.The company was owned by sole director, Tabinda Dahir and the HSE found that he was fully aware of ongoing lift problems but had not ensured that appropriate action was taken.

Paperwork

The root cause of the lift’s haphazard management lay with the owner. Instead of recognising the potential for a catastrophic accident, and acting accordingly, his management of the lift was quite casual.

However, he appeared to tick the boxes required: (1) the lift was subject to six-monthly thorough examinations by an independent inspector as required by the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER) ; (2) there was a maintenance contract with a specialist lift company; (3) staff knew to report defects and these were passed to the maintenance engineers, sometimes quite urgently. In reality there may be many employers which act in the same way and believe they have done enough (see The next step ).

Vital step

One criticism was that the care home failed to supply copies of the six-monthly Thorough Examination reports to L. Had it done so, the lift company would have understood that certain faults were being raised repeatedly and been able to address them much earlier.

Tip. Ensure that you send a copy of LOLER reports to your maintenance contractor. Ideally do so electronically so that there’s an audit trail. Highlight any urgent points on the report.

Tip. Check that staff know to make an immediate report to the lift company of any defect. Ask the engineer directly whether it is safe to continue using it. Allocate a senior staff member to chase up repairs.

For a lift safety checklist, visit https://www.tips-and-advice.co.uk , Download Zone, year 20, issue 09.

The basics were in place including independent examination of the lift’s safety, but as the reports were not shared with the lift company it was unaware that repeated faults were being flagged. If you have a lift make sure this vital step is not missed, and have a system in place to ensure appropriate action is taken in response to defects.