Posted By Chris Packham
Perhaps you might consider the following:

What we are primarily concerned with is inhalation of tobacco smoke. Provided that the room is reasonably well ventilated, how probable is it that there will still be sufficient airborne tobacco smoke to represent a health hazard?

I am assuming that the person doing the cleaning is sufficiently well protected against skin/inhalation exposure to the cleaning chemicals, so exposure to nicotine and other contaminants deposited on surfaces is unlikely to represent any significant hazard.

Chris

Posted By Merv Newman
Tony,

this may not be clear in the UK legislation but French legislation could give you a guide.

Cleaners or other non-smoking persons should not be allowed into a "smoking area" until one hour has passed since the last smoking has occurred.

And this into an "enclosed" area with "adequate" ventilation.

I suppose the UK "substantially unenclosed" could be assimilated as "adequately ventilated"

It's all a bit weird.

Merv

Posted By Merv Newman
Dunno about propping the door open. I always make sure that it is closed when I leave so that no-one else can raid my minibar.

Hotel rooms would not have "adequate" ventilation (pulls yer wig off) under the current legislation.

Merv

Posted By alan noble
Work in smoke free enforcement in Scotland and the exemption for hotel bedrooms has been a problem in many ways. I will talk about Scotland because I don't think England is going to be different. The smoke free regs allow a designated bedroom which has a ventilation system which does not vent to any other part of the premses except another designated bedroom. However a standard was never set and guidance said it was acceptable in a hotel ,geusthouse, B&B to have a fully opening window. You ever tried to ventilated a room on a calm day? One problem has been that hotel bedrooms above ground floor are going to have window restrictors for legitimate H&S reasons i.e falls from heights. So our guidance then becomes where these restrictors can be overcome to allow window to be fully opened then thats ok. So you have position where H&S concerns become secondary to smoking concerns.

The demographic of who has gone smoke free in our area is interesting. All our luxury hotels and they include ones at the Open golf venues of Turnberry and Royal Troon have gone completely smoke free. The only hotels that retain smoking bedrooms are those that cater for passing trade such as travel lodge type. However all our B&Bs, guesthouses which cater for a similar trade have gone smoke free.

To answer your question about staff in designated hotel bedrooms. Any work activity has to risk assessed(written if more than 5 staff). That RA has to be reviewed either periodically or in light of any change in knowledge or regulation. With the new legislation and because our understanding of the health risks associated with exposure to environmental tobacco smoke(ETS) are more severe than previously thought then any RA currently in place for workers exposure to ETS must be reviewed.

I have requested RAs from all hotels still with designated rooms. Most have come back with "the staff open windows and don't re-enter the room for a time" (usually an hour). A couple have guest rules e.g. guests are asked not to smoke in front of staff,guests requested not to smoke on morning of departure. However 2 hotels went smoke free just because the RA was too much of an effort for them !!!

Posted By alan noble
DRB,says "The actual risks to the cleaner are not going to be that significant unless the smoker is still there and smoking like a chimney!" Yes, probably, but those risks still have to be assessed under H&S legislation so it would be valid to use MELs or OES's.

In your piece you seem to be implying that hotels shouldn't bother about staff because regulators will be concentrating on pubs and restaurants. On the contrary hotels as high risk premises will be at the top of the list for visits by smoking enforcement officers who can pass on any H&S concerns to the appropriate council service.

In Scotland, the smoking ban was sold on statements from experts like " There is no safe ventilation system" or " No ventilation system can remove all known carcinogens". So staff who continued to work in smoking environments raised their concerns about their H&S. The only way that these concerns could be legitimately addressed is through risk assessment.

My advice to hoteliers would be to go smoke free, if not, they have no option but to risk assess the work that staff do. The risk assessment will identify the control measures needed which might be to leave the smoking rooms till last or leave the air-con on max.

Posted By Chris Jerman
Rob, thanks for saying what I was thinking. Perchance a G&T may help you unwind a little, though. Ooh, not 'till you've risk assessed it.

I'm with you on this and actually feel that your comments could be aimed at many of the topics discussed on the forum. Not sure where the profession is going, but if some of the advice given here is what also goes to employers, it's time to bale out. Having said that, there are some very valuable discussions from which we all learn. Long may it be so. I think that we need to exercise some self discipline when answering some of the 'silly' issues as seriously as we do.

On the smoking stuff, clearly if smoke is hanging in the air, it represents a hazard. But who ever died from a smell? The 1 hour rule? OK it makes sure, but you know that this will pas into folk-law as 'You are not allowed to smoke in a hotel room for 1 hour before checking out - it's the law! Along with ladders are illegal.

OK you just know that someone's going to answer that one!

Chris

Posted By DRB
Well done chaps, I was the H&S Expo yesterday, same old same old, so wasn't able to reply to Alan's email.

The reminder about SIGNIFICANT was a good one. All too often H&S practitioners go OTT and the issue of smoke free premises is going to be a topic with some people are going to over-react.

As for hotels being high risk. I'm not sure where that comes from!

Merv, enjoy the city but just so your sure the Kings Road ain't anywhere near Watford and you can still smoke in England so you and your pipe should be okay.

Posted By DRB
Alan

Take a few deep breaths and count to 10.

We all know that the Smoke Free legislation is not about protecting hotel room cleaners from the smell of tobacco smoke. It's more about reducing the number of smokers in general. It's more about public health than health and safety.

Whilst second hand smoke may be harmful in the long term, a smelly hotel room is not going to present any significant risk to a cleaner.

As a non-smoker who enjoys the odd pint I'm looking forward to 1st July so that I can return home from the pub without smelling of smoke. But I'm also pragmatic enough not to overreact to this from a H&S point of view. There's clearly enough of that which goes on already!!

Posted By Chris Jerman
Oh dear Alan. Your reply illustrates our points all too well. Be very, very careful when making accusations or assumptions on these pages about what you believe is 'clear' about the knowledge and understanding of those who post replies.

What we are trying to do is fight an increasing tide of nonesense and innapropriate use of the tools of our trade. Risk assessing the blindingly obvious gets you where exactly? - I'm not talking about compliance here, I'm talking about the use of assessment to establish something as yet un-established. No. No-one died from a smell. If you mean that people have died through inhalation of airborne hazards - well of course, whether it be biological, toxiological or otherwise. My point was made in the context of the post and not some 18th C study into outbreaks of cholera or some-such.

Last post from me on this as I have no more time to waste on it.

Tony apologies if your thread got hijacked. Simple truth - 'active' smoke very bad, filthy smell impregnated into textiles - not a problem

Posted By Tony W
Gentlemen,

Thank you for a very entertaining (all!) and informative (most!) set of responses on this issue. I'm not sure whether I got the answer I was looking for but to be honest I think had made my mind up on the matter before I posted the query. Its always healthy to get further opinion and advice from peers.
As I said in my first posting, it has been a while since I have used the forum but I will definitely be using it more frequently in the future.

Regards.

Posted By alan noble
Chris I am going to make this my last post also and hopefully add to Tony W's entertainment value.

Firstly I would like to apologise to you Chris because you clearly know what you are talking about which was not evident from your first post.

Secondly I have clearly shown that my background is enforcement of both H&S and smokefree legislation. Therefore I am interested in compliance and while it is a public health initiative, H&S cannot be ignored. HSE guidance on hse.gov.uk says

"Premises Exempt from Smoke free Legislation
Health and Safety legislation will continue to require employers, in premises permitted exemptions under the smoke-free law, to reduce the risk to the health and safety of their employees from second hand smoking to as low a level as is reasonably practicable. The Smoke-free Scotland Guidance on smoking policies for the NHS, local authorities and care service providers [PDF 118kb] contains helpful advice on how to do this. It can also be obtained from the Scottish Executive at the above address."

Thirdly in reducing risk to employees, clearly risk assessment has an important role. I have seen risk assessments from hotel proprietors which say that mitigation measures are that "staff go into room, open window, and do not return for at least an hour". Ok, blindly obvious stuff but decided after a risk assessment. Which answers your question Chris, a risk assessment is clearly a blindingly obvious thing to do and it is a blindly obvious thing for an enforcement officer to ask for.

Fourthly, clearly as someone new to this forum I have not been aware of the fight to stem the tide of nonsense and inappropriate use of the tools of the trade. However the posts (in my opinion) show a certain battle weariness, in that instead of countering advice given in good faith which "we" consider wrong, there are comments made which (in my opinion) belittle or patronise the contributor. Something likely to provoke a strong response (and yes DRB I have counted to 10 this time). Clearly as someone who does not have god-like status (Rob T)I do get things wrong and apologise if anyone took my posts personally.

Finally, clearly I now have a decision to make on whether it is worth my time to make any future contributions (or just declare neutrality in your war, prefer more Sweden than Switzerland) but it has been fun chaps.

Posted By Chris Jerman
Alan, apologies not necessary my friend. These pages and the arguments made within them serve only to make us all richer. I agree with the phrase 'battle weary'. As I work very closely with the HSE and have done for many years, we sometimes struggle to ascertain where the 'myths' come from. Eg ladders are banned, COSHH Assessments becoming COSHH 'Risk' Assessments, risk assessing the living daylights out of everything in sight etc etc.

I have suggested that whilst it's nothing that the HSE have said, it's a case of what they didn't say. They need to make very clear the spirit of regulations. Just what they wanted from reg 3 for example is very clear to me because I was there at the time. But they never actually said "Look, the whole idea of risk assessment is this.........." Instead they let people make up their own minds with only '5 stumbles to nothing like risk assessment' for guidance and then took 15 years to say "Actually Guys, this has all gone a bit Pete Tong" Safe environments for everyone at work, you bet, no argument. But as to risk assessment being the answer to everything, err no.

The problem with e-mail and bulletins etc is that replies are sometimes made on the spur of the moment and perhaps not fully thought through as to how they may be read.

Alan,I would be saddened to think that you may not continue to contribute to these pages. New or old to the forum we all have the right to our views, but we need to keep it professional.

Let's rock.

Chris