Lift Policy

Introduction

At Magna, we’re committed to ensuring the safety of our customers, colleagues and others who work with us.

It’s important for us to manage the risk of lift safety. This policy sets out our lift safety standards and procedures, to make sure we meet all legal and regulatory requirements in the way we design, construct, manage, service and maintain lifts in our homes.

Who this policy applies to and what it covers

This policy applies to:

• All through-floor lifts, stair lifts and passenger lifts owned and/or managed by us.
• All homes, estates, communal buildings and offices that we own or manage.
• All colleagues and anyone else we employ in the design, construction, management and maintenance of our homes and estates.

The policy specifically covers:

• Servicing stair lifts annually; through-floor lifts every six months and passenger lifts quarterly. The service schedules comply with the Safety Assessment Federation (SAFED) requirements.
• Arrangements for our insurers to carry out their own inspections of all stairs lifts annually and through-floor and passenger lifts every six months.
• Arrangements for risk assessments to be carried out when a stair or through-floor lift is recommended by an occupational therapist or lift designer. Risk assessments are then carried out as part of the routine service inspections.
• Arrangements for empty homes with a stair lift or through-floor lift that it is being kept to be serviced before letting. An additional risk assessment will also be carried out.
• Ensuring our records are kept up to date with any lift installations found during stock condition surveys.
• Maintaining records of all lift servicing completed when notified by the contractor.
• Arrangements for customers to get our permission to install a lift in their home, whether funded by themselves or through charitable funding.
• Maintaining records of all new lifts installed when notified by the Council or the customer, and all lifts removed from homes when confirmation documentation is received. We’ll ask customers at least every three years whether they have a lift in their home which is not being serviced.
• The design, construction and maintenance of our homes.
• Communication with customers about lift safety.

Our Lift Safety Policy

The safety of our customers, colleagues and contractors is at the heart of what we do at Magna. We’re committed to ensuring that our lifts are safe, managed to meet legal and regulatory requirements, and achieve our Regulator’s Consumer Standard, as an absolute minimum. We strive to achieve what is considered to be industry best practice.

In delivering this policy, we commit to ensuring that everyone involved in managing lift safety at Magna demonstrate the appropriate competency levels and, where necessary, third-party accreditation. We employ specialist contractors to carry out servicing and repairs of lifts.

We’re committed to ensuring lift safety when building our new homes, considering it at the early stages of design, in the construction phase and the management and maintenance when built.

We’ll consult with our customers on lift safety related activities, inform them about the outcome of assessments, ensure awareness, provide advice and listen and respond to any safety concerns.

The safety of our customers is paramount. We’ll ensure that resources and funding required to deliver lift safety works are prioritised, taking into account a risk-based approach to the urgency of the work.

We will ensure that performance on lift safety activity is regularly scrutinised to ensure continuous improvement and that any lessons learnt are embedded.

Our Lift Safety Standard and Procedure

We want to make sure that we are really clear about the standards we are working to when it comes to lift safety management. We’ve developed a Lift Safety Standard, which defines what we’ll do to promote lift safety. The standard explains who is responsible for delivering the service and details how frequently we expect to carry out specific activities in customers’ homes, in communal areas and on estates.

The standard is supported by a clear procedure and instructions to ensure that the services are delivered consistently by our colleagues and by specialist contractors. The standard and procedure are kept under constant review to ensure they are fit for purpose in a fast-changing environment.

Responsibilities for Lift Safety Management

The Director of Customer Operations is accountable for all aspects of lift safety management at Magna and is responsible for the development and review of the Lift Safety Policy and Lift Safety Standard annually, ensuring that these meet all regulatory requirements and guidance.

The Head of Building Safety, Compliance and Home Services is responsible for operational delivery of lift safety management activities, for maintaining accurate lift safety related data and for reporting on lift safety management in line with governance arrangements. They are also responsible for ensuring that customers are effectively consulted on all aspects of lift safety in their homes and estates.

All colleagues are responsible for ensuring that the work they carry out meets our policies and standards.

This policy will be considered and approved annually by our Strategic Board.

A range of performance measures and indicators, relating directly to the Lift Safety Standard, will be agreed and reported to managers and directors as appropriate. High level performance indicators will be reported to Strategic Board on a regular basis.

Our performance on lift safety, including lessons learned from incidents, will form part of the quarterly report to the Health and Safety Forum and will be included in the annual report to Strategic Board on corporate health and safety.