MEWP International Safety Committee launch

A new International Safety Committee (ISC) has been convened by the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) for the first time, to assist in globalising standards development and effective implementation, and promoting awareness about industry safe practice.

IPAF’s first International Safety Committee (ISC) meeting was held at Vertikal Days

The new committee has been created from the existing IPAF Accident Work Group of the IPAF UK Country Council, which was instrumental in compiling and analysing incident statistics gathered via IPAF’s Accident Reporting Portal, leading to the annual IPAF Global Safety Report, recently published for 2021.

The existing members of the Accident Work Group have been joined by representatives from around the globe on the expanded committee, with Chair Mark Keily of Sunbelt Rentals UK confirmed as continuing in the role at the first meeting on 22 September 2021. The hybrid meeting, hosted from Vertikal Days at the East of England Showground, Peterborough, UK, also elected Alana Paterson of Nationwide Platforms as Vice-Chair.

Brian Parker, IPAF’s Head of Safety & Technical, said, “The IPAF Accident Work Group worked hard behind the scenes to produce safety guidance based on data we have been collecting and analysing since 2013. Now we have expanded that work group into a truly international committee and I am pleased to say that we now have representatives from North America, Australia, Brazil, China, Italy and the Middle East.

“The first meeting of the committee was very productive and considered a range of issues, including how best to utilise our resources to collate, process and analyse the increasing number of incident reports we are gathering through the IPAF accident reporting portal, which is receiving reports from more than 20 countries worldwide.

“The committee considered how to boost accident reporting and in particular logging of near-miss incidents and incidents involving non-MEWP powered access, including MCWPs and construction hoists. The group also discussed upcoming safety and technical guidance, including a new MEWPs in Public Areas safety document, and issues including development and implementation of new safety standards, including standardisation of controls and emergency lowering procedures.”

Visit www.ipaf.org/accident to view or download the IPAF Global Safety Report 2021. Please use www.ipafaccidentreporting.org to report all accidents, incidents and near misses using powered access.