Posted By J Knight
PUWER may apply; the guidance does suggest that homeworkers' equipment would be within PUWER (even though this is not quite the same issue), as would equipment brought into work by the employee. However, there would be problems with applying PUWER, mainly in terms of who is 'supplying' the equipment, since it would probably not be the employer in this case. I generally assume that PUWER is not applicable, though this is the absence of knowledge of any case law or clear advice from enforcers. Part of the difficulty is that HSE/HSC (once again) appears to have never heard of our industry, which employs several million people and has a bigger turnover than the whole of manufacturing.

I do note with interest that your workers are asked to carry out a visual inspection, but on this occasion failed to spot a frayed lead, which would presumably have been reasonably visible on inspection. There seems to be some need to look at the behavioural & organsational aspects of this situation; though I know that this wouldn't be very easy.

What damage was caused? Since the equipment belonged to the service user, and it was presumably their own property which was damaged, then surely that would be their own problem? The involvement of your worker may not have been a material aspect in this situation.

The only involvement I've had in a similar situation was when an employee was given a slight electric shock by a vacuum cleaner on a homecare visit; in this case there was no need to make a report and no legal consequences; I'm certainly very interested in the questions you ask as this is my nightmare (well, one of them),

John

Posted By Paul J Williams
Without giving this too much thought I would say that whilst PUWER may apply it would not concern me I think section 2 HSW is the place to look. I think the previous respondee is on the right tracks. Essentially what we need to avoid is applying workplace rules to domestic situations whislt still ensuring the safety of the people who are indeed at work. A sensible approach is therefore to train employees to do the visual checks and of the importance of doing so. When doing the training use real items to show how faults develop and what they look like. After all we all use these items ourselves in our own homes without a formal PAT regime and lets face if all we do is visual checks. I think training the people to recognise faults, telling them what to do if they find a faulty item and the use of an RCD should in the vast majority of cases suffice in doing what is reasonable practicable.
Remeber though that portable RCDs are prone to damage and they are a substitute for visual checks. After all they will offer no protection to a double insulated appliance that has exposed electrodes (at least I think not)

Posted By J Knight
I agree wholly with Paul in that RCDs are no guarantee of safety; they offer a measure of protection. The visual inspection is the thing, and a clear statement to staff that they should refuse to use faulty equipment. On this occasion the safe system of work clearly didn't work, so it's time to review your organisational risk assessment, to examine the effectiveness of your training, and to try and understand why that particular member of staff didn't follow procedures. Once you know why they did what they did the next step should be suggested by the outcome of the investigation. The particular issue with all forms of homecare is that the employee is on their own, with no direct supervision and limited back-up. A very high degree of responsibility is demanded, especially where hazards can only be avoided by safe systems of work. This whole scenario points up very awkward questions about the limits of organisational versus personal responsibility. I don't think there's any mileage in blaming the worker in the first instance, but you do need to examine the kinds of behavioural signals you are giving to your employees, and not necessarily just the ones written in the procedures. What is it really like out there? What kind of pressure was this employee under, and who was applying it? Was it the employer? The service user or their family? Or was it internal, generated by the employees own attitudes? These are the kinds of questions to ask,

John.