Slips Are Still the UK's Biggest Workplace Injury: When Coatings Beat Cleaning

Slips and trips remain the single most common cause of reported workplace injury in the UK. In warehouses and production areas the causes are usually predictable: water tracked in from yards, condensation near chillers, oil and hydraulic residue near plant, and polished concrete that has been worn smooth over years of trafficking.

Cleaning problem or surface problem?

The distinction is simple. If a floor is only slippery when something is spilled on it, and returns to safe when clean and dry, you have a contamination and cleaning problem. If a floor is slippery when clean and dry, or becomes hazardous with a light film of moisture, the surface itself no longer has enough micro-texture and no cleaning schedule will fix it.

What anti-slip actually means

Slip resistance is measured as a pendulum test value. In broad terms, a value in the mid-thirties or above is considered low slip potential for level pedestrian areas, with higher values needed for ramps, wet process areas and external routes. Anti-slip resin systems achieve this using graded aggregate broadcast into the coating, so the texture is built into the floor rather than sitting on top of it.

Matching texture to the task

• Light texture for pedestrian corridors and pallet truck routes that need easy cleaning
• Medium texture for production areas with occasional splash and light contamination
• Heavy texture for wash-down areas, chillers, ramps and external loading aprons
• Zoned specification so cleaning teams aren't fighting an aggressive profile where it isn't needed

Over-specifying texture is a real risk. Too coarse a finish in a food or pharma environment becomes difficult to clean, which creates a different compliance problem.

Preparation is 80% of the result

Anti-slip coatings fail for one reason above all others: they were applied to a surface that wasn't properly prepared. Diamond grinding or shot blasting to a sound, open profile, plus repair of cracks and spalling, is what turns a coating into a floor that lasts years rather than months.

Where to start

Walk your site and mark every location where someone has slipped, nearly slipped, or where a wet floor sign lives permanently. A permanent wet floor sign is not a control measure, it's an unresolved action. Those locations are your specification list.

Frequently asked questions

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