Posted By Zoe Barnett Can anyone please help with guidance on how to ensure the safety of people with epilepsy when they are using a public swimming pool? We've had a couple of instances lately when people have had seizures in the water. I've contacted Epilepsy Action (the British Epilepsy Association as was) but would be very grateful for any "real life" ideas or thoughts. Many thanks.

Posted By Ken Taylor Back in my local authority days we had a fatality in one of our pools where a special needs young person with epilepsy had a fit and choked on vomitted food (not having observed the published warning about eating and swimming). CPR proved unsuccessful and we had to engage the RLSS to prove to the HSE and the coroner that our procedures were correct. Accompanyment, supervision and recognition seem to be the accepted controls (see http://www.seattlechildr...ater-safety-seizures.htm , etc) - but with notification a matter for the individual or their carer. Needless to say, prohibition or other unreasonable discrimination would not be acceptable in the normal course of events.

Posted By Ken Taylor Are we beginning to sound old Robert? I hope they are not holding school trips without risk assessments. The DfES have recently published new guidance to supplement their ealier inadequate booklet on this subject and risk assessment is very much the order of the day.

Posted By Ken Taylor I've found it best to set up a system for school trips in our schools with standard forms for completion at various stages and for specific types of activity (for approval, parental authority, risk assessment, monitoring, etc) rather than relying upon teachers to pick up blank risk assessment forms and complete them.

Posted By Ken Taylor Thanks for the reminder of the interpreting service (http://www.nisuk.co.uk). How much do they charge for annual membership these days? I appreciate your frustration about teachers and other professionals. Basically all our lot have to do by way of 'extra work' for school trips is pick up the right form at the right time, decide if anything needs to be added and then sign it - but I even get complaints about that! Other risk assessments are generally achieved by the Bursars issuing forms annually to Heads of Departments and giving a date for their return. Each school then has to provide an annual return to the central governing body. It's often seen as 'more unnecessary paperwork' - so I try to make the point that if things go wrong they will be judged with reference to the paperwork as well as their actual performance.

Posted By Ashley Williams I'll be honest here and point out that I worked for an organisation that held events for school children to attend and not one school ever provided a risk assessment of their attending or even asked us for the one we produced from our point of view. In fact I even questioned the LA over it and they coulnt provide any guidance or even clarify a pupil staff ratio figure. I think its down to those of us with school kids to actually apply pressure to the LA and schools to prove they are doing risk assessments rather than wait for it to go wrong. The Unions are up in arms over the extra pressure it will place on the poor teachers who have to write the risk assessments. For gods sake we all know its only common sense thats needed in the risk assessment, as already pointed out the example of river flooding and fast flow rate, hmmmm do i place little kids in it? Common sense would say No. The idot who got it wrong should have been prosecuted for the offence not the LA. Ashley A Concerned Parent

Posted By Jerry Sanderson To be fair to the unions as mentioned in Ashley's response not all of them are up in arms about the new guidance and some are actually very much in favour of it as it affords more protection to their members. I would agree with the frustrations of many as expressed in this thread about the reluctance of staff to carry out risk assessments.The fact that many see this as a new additional burden is also very frustrating as it means that despite all the work we have done since 1993 many still have not been carrying out risk assessments. We have also started to produce more generic risk assessments for visits my only concern with this is that it to some degree removes the ownership of them from the people leading and supervising the visits. On the positive side however the new guidance has galvanised thinking within our LEA and the health and safety team now have a much more active role in approving(or disallowing) visits.It has also become quite clear that once staff get involved in the process and understand the reasoning for it they are more than happy to produce assessments and that they in fact have some very good tried and tested control measures. Also on a final note many of the private providers used by schools on trips have good risk assessments in place and have been more than willing to forward them to us.

Posted By Nicky Ashley, You are not the only concerned parent, a school I know left a nursey child on the bus and blamed parents, children etc, anyone but the school, and finally 7 months later a report deemed it to be mainly the Governors fault. What has happened to common sense? Teachers should be in full charge. With lack of ownership of any responsibility and to some extent common sense things like water sports, mountaineering, etc. should always be left to the qualified providers, not teachers. Nicky