The https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/highways-englandDefinition of a ‘Safety Critical Worker’ from the Highways England advisory document ‘Raising The Bar 12’ – revised 2015
Safety critical workers (SCW)
Who is Safety Critical?
Each person’s fitness for undertaking any task is important but it is essential when the employee is undertaking a high risk activity, is in a high risk environment or conducting an activity where their health could have a critical impact on the safety
of the individual or others.
As a result of the working environment the majority of people on Highways Agency contracts are safety critical, anyone within the scope of either of the following two statements will be required to demonstrate that they have had a safety critical
medical before starting work:
A. any person required to work within 5 metres of live traffic without a fixed barrier
and an adequate barrier deflection zone.
B. any person working within temporary traffic management (even if fixed barrier) in
a high speed environment (50mph or more, prior to any temporary traffic restrictions
being implemented.)
In the few occasions when personnel are not within the scope of the above definition some roles remains safety critical in all circumstances, these include:
• Mobile plant operators
• Asbestos licensed workers
• Tunnellers or those working in a confined space
• Tasks carried out at height where collective preventative measures to control risk
are not practicable, e.g. scaffolders, steel erectors and persons erecting or
dismantling tower cranes.
• Banksmen, Traffic Marshals and Slinger Signallers
