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Posted By Jonathan Breeze
Colleagues,
Just let me test the water here:
Would the provision of personal alarms to staff who deal with (occasionally agitated) members of the public be deemed as PPE under the appropriate Regs?
My contention is that they are because:
1) They are designed to protect the user from assault (by frightening the assailant & drawing attention to the situation);
2) They are provided as a means of last resort to try and ensure personal safety after all the usual safe systems of work;
3) They are provided on the basis of a job risk assessment; and
4) They require information, instruction & training prior to use.
However, In spite of all this I do not see them listed as examples in the schedules or appendicies and am wondering whether they are covered by any other legislation which I may have missed.
Your thoughts please.
Jon
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Posted By Karen Todd
Jonathan,
I would not consider them as PPE. They would not limit the damage caused by a smack in the mouth or a clash over the head.
Just in the same way that a fire alarm would not protect you (directly) from a fire.
Regards,
Karen
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Posted By John Webster
Karen's illustration is well put. Not PPE, but they are Work Equipment, and so would come under PUWER
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Posted By Jonathan Breeze
How exactly is a personal alarm different from say a manual pull-cord inflatable life-jacket, which is covered by the Regs?
Neither will protect you from the initial hazard, but both are designed to minimise the subsequent exposure to hazards.
Jon
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Posted By Karen Todd
Jonathan,
I think that the lifejacket provides physical protection from drowning, although as you say it does not stop you falling into the water in the the first place or reduce the likelihood of it.
The personal alarm offers no 'physical' protection from assault.
I think that with PPE, the protection offered is quantifiable (e.g. earplugs have SNR of say 30dB, you would choose a lifejacket with the right buoyancy, etc.).
It is not possible to quantify the protection offered by the alarm in the same way.
I would suggest that a lifejacket is PPE, but the whistle and flashing beacon on it are not, even though they attract attention and you hopefully get rescued quicker hence minimising the consequences.
Regards,
Karen
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Posted By Jonathan Breeze
OK I'm happy to accept that point in order to move on to my real question, which is:
How do I present a case to management that Personal Alarms are a means of last resort to be used after other measures are in place, if I can't use Reg 4 of the PPE Regs?
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Posted By Keith Archer.
Jonathan,
As you have stated that these personal alarms are provided as part of your risk assessment (Reg3 Management regs) do you believe it is a suitable risk assessment? If so and as risk assessment is a fundamental part of the provision of a safe system of work you could argue this point using your risk assessment control measures.
Where will these personal alarms be used and at what noise levels will the alarms emit.
Cheers
Keith
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Posted By Jonathan Breeze
In answer to my own question first:
Management Regs. Reg 4, Schedule 1 appears to be the sort of thing I was looking for to back up my case.
Keith:
Yes I do think the Risk Assessment is suitable, in that problems have been identified & solutions proposed.
I suspect the weakness is in the application of the risk assessment findings. This is the point I was currently trying to address.
Jon
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Posted By Diane Thomason
I agree that these alarms are not PPE. They are supposedly a means of raising the alarm.
I agree with you that this is a last resort means of "protection". If it's being used to summon help, first the victim has to be in a position to use the alarm, then there has to be someone around to hear it, then that someone has to take some action (apparently these alarms are often ignored.)
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust do a good pocket guide on "personal safety at work" and personal alarms are given just a tiny paragraph. The suggestion is that if you are attacked you sound the alarm up against the attacker's ear to disorientate them and give yourself a few seconds to get away.
Not that useful IMHO.
Diane
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Posted By Jonathan Breeze
Update:
I have received advice that technically, according to Reg. 2(1) Personal Alarms ARE classified as PPE.
However Reg. 3(2)(c) specifically disapplies the rest of the Regulations for "portable devices for ... signalling risks and nuisances."
This means that the solution we came to on the forum was in fact the correct one.
Thanks again one and all to those who responded either directly or via the forum.
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Posted By Dave Wilson
J,
Hiya buddy, If you are trying to use a 'specific' statute to get something done which may be 'obscure' to say thge least, you will, in my experience fail, as thier will always be some smart **** who will disagree and you then end up in a bun fight mate.
why not use your statistics to say this is the amount and type of violence we get to our staff and hopefully we can reduce this drastically and increase morale if we did this! what about it Boss? It will only cost£XXX and if we can reduce the amount off work or dealing with this it will save us £XXXXX.
S Lamplugh Trust are excellent and would give you some advice mate.
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Posted By Jack
I took your sentence 'How do I present a case to management that Personal Alarms are a means of last resort- - -' to infer that you were trying to convince managers that they should only provide these things as a 'last resort' and were trying to convince them to implement more important controls first. I guess from the rest of the posting that you feel all other measures have been taken but feel this additional measure of last resort is needed?
I am sceptical about the value of these things. They often seem to be issued by managers who are not prepared to consider other control measures. When they were first used the main reason put forward was to summon help. Various studies (eg Which?) have shown what is fairly obvious - no one takes a blind bit of notice! So the organisations which promoted them have tended to suggest other advantages like they 'disorientate' while you make your escape; just as likely to infuriate and generally wind up the attacker.
I accept that there may be some situations where they should be issued and they can give people confidence which may (perhaps) make them less likely to be attacked but they are no panacea. My concern is that they deflect attention from introducing other more effective (and usually more costly) controls.
On your main point I think it not important whether PPE or not. Whatever criteria you use they are pretty close to the bottom of any hierarchy.
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Posted By Jonathan Breeze
Dave,
Good point that, I'll probably add a footnote on costs & savings, although I wonder how much it'll help.
Jack,
The problem was, the risk assessment had been completed & recommendations made.
One of these recommendations had been to change working practices to make them safer.
Another had been to provide staff who dealt with the public with these alarms.
Management had purchased the alarms but had not yet changed working practices, which to my mind was the wrong way round.
I was familiar with the principle of the heirachy of controls as applied to PPE & that is where I started from, hence my initial question.
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Posted By Jack
Yeah, I've come across similar situations myself. Senior manager handed out alarms to all staff to show how concerned he was for their safety but didn't do an assessment which would have identified basic procedures which would have made a real difference. Damn things were going off all the time - no one took any notice!
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