A lot of our staff are getting emails suggesting that the law is changing in January and that new safety signs are required. The emails are suggesting that in order to comply with EN7010 we need to update all our signs. I smell a marketing ploy here however before I ignore the emails (from 'reputable' companies) am I right to be sceptical? Whilst I can understand new signs needing to comply do we really need to replace existing ones and is EN7010 The Law or just a suggested standard, (ie are we free to create our own signs)? Comments welcome.

I think the term free to create your own signs could have potential problems. internationaly recognised signage has been with us for a while, I use standard signage with additional information as required.

It is not up to ISO, but down to European Committee for Standardization (CEN) whether it adopts an ISO Standard at European Level. It is through the "Vienna Agreement", signed by CEN in 1991 with ISO that deals with technical cooperation and adoption of the same text, as both an ISO Standard and a European Standard, so they do work in co-operation. Many sign supplier qoute, "Over the next few months we will see the adoption of a new standard for safety signs as ISO 7010 is soon to become Pr EN 7010. The change will see safety signs in the workplace move away from being an “International standard” (essentially a recommendation on best practice), to a European norm (meaning the contents of the standard must be written into UK and EU law). " A PrEN_____ is not the final CEN standard, but a PROPOSED one. Last, but not least, unless a CEN standard is a requirement or part of the Essentisl Safety Requirements as a part of Harmonised supply directives, it is mandatory to have signs that meet current requirements to be changed. However, it is would be prudent to buy new signs that meets the ISO standard and the yet to be proposed CEN adoption.

But the fact that a standard is a EN does not mean that it needs to be (or will necessarily ever be) written into any law - european or otherwise. An EN is just a standard, not a law. It will only be mandated if a law is also passed which says you must have fire exit signs that comply with EN whatever-it-is. Having said which, it seems likely that this one will be referenced to some degree in law, eventually, but it seems to me very unlikely that it will be mandated for anything other than new applications. So, if you happen to be putting up new signs for some reason, it's probably best to make the new one match what will probably be in the EN. However, the EN is not a reason to be replacing existing signs. I do note, however, that the directive that started it all (Council Directive 92/58/EEC of 24 June 1992 on the minimum requirements for the provision of safety and/or health signs at work (ninth individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16 (1) of Directive 89/391/EEC)) explicitly states that you don't need to use exactly the pictogram it shows in its illustrations. Annex II Item 1.3: "The pictograms used may be slightly different from or more detailed than those shown in section 3, provided that they convey the same meaning and that no difference or adaptation obscures the meaning." So actually, you can make a case for arguing that whichever of the two pictograms does end up in an EN, the other one would also be directive-compliant anyway. So then you need to be guessing whether our new UK law will simply be a copy-out of the directive (so any reasonably modern fire exit sign will be compliant) or whether we will get more gold-plating or diluting.

There are actually 3 the 3rd being the HTM (Firecode) compliant firesign used in hospitals it has a fire symbol added and costs twice as much as a BS sign apparantly when asked to identify a fire sign a few visitors to hospitals looked at the green man going through the door and thought it ment toilet this way so the fire was added

Every hotel I've been in while staying in Brussels or France over the past 10 years had SORTIE in red on a white background. Good to see they are keeping up with the times. Not a Euro bash, just a reflection that I probably need to stay in better hotels.