Your rough terrain forklift works on soft, sloping, rutted ground. If it tips or drops a load, who was trained and assessed on that machine, and where is it written down? PHW assesses your operators on your own machine, on your own ground.
Masted rough terrain forklifts of all sizes, from the small machine a groundworks firm, builders' merchant, farm or plant hire depot runs on its own ground to the larger yard machines. A machine with an extending boom, such as a JCB Loadall, is the telescopic handler course.
Your trade: construction and civils, agriculture, plant hire, goods in and goods out.
PHW assesses your operators on your own machine, on your own ground. The theory covers stability and the load centre, and what tips a machine forward: slopes, potholes and uneven ground, and travelling with the load raised. The practical covers the daily check (forks, mast and chains, tyres, hydraulics), driving laden and unladen on gradients and over rutted ground, blind corners, site traffic and pedestrians, placing loads, loading and unloading lorries, and getting the machine on and off a transporter. The twelve units on the certificate are listed below.
The operator gets certificates to show on site. You get the records for your file. Anyone can scan the QR code on a certificate to open the live record.
In Great Britain the duty to train sits with the employer, under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 section 2(2)(c) and the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) regulation 9, which requires adequate training for everyone who uses work equipment. PUWER also reaches a person who controls the machine or how it is used (regulation 3).
The Approved Code of Practice L117, rider-operated lift trucks, covers rough terrain trucks and sets out a three-stage training model: basic training, specific job training, and familiarisation on the job.
A rough terrain forklift is lifting equipment, so LOLER 1998 applies to it. Every lift must be planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out safely (regulation 8). The machine must be thoroughly examined at least every 12 months, or at least every 6 months where it is used to lift people, or in line with an examination scheme (regulation 9).
On rough ground it is the gradient, the ground bearing capacity and the tyre condition that decide stability, not just the load on the forks.
Once an operator has completed all three stages of training, L117 paragraph 67 says the employer should give them written authorisation to operate the trucks they have been trained to use, stating the operator, the date, the types of truck and any conditions. The certificate, the theory and practical records and the site evidence statement are the evidence you rely on when you make that decision.
Up to four of your people assessed for competence in one day, on your own site and machines, with minimum downtime. Plus a written safe-system pack for each topic.
Tell us how many will drive the machine and the site postcode.