The Health and Safety Executive has issued a safety alert about platform lifts.
A platform lift is a vertical lifting platform or lift for people with impaired mobility.
Platform lifts, like traditional passenger lifts, provide access between floors. Platform lifts are hydraulically, or electrically powered. Usually, they operate over two to three floors. They typically rely on hold to run operation and operate at slower speeds than conventional passenger lifts.
HSE is aware of a number of incidents involving tampering with safety devices or inappropriate maintenance of door switches or unlocking zone bypass switches during maintenance.
Combined with deterioration of the doors and their hinges, landing doors have opened when the platform/lift is not at that landing. This resulted in people potentially accessing the lift well when the lifting platform was not at the same floor level/landing. This has resulted in members of the public or workers falling down the open lift well or becoming trapped beneath a descending platform.
For further information, please see HSE's website.