Hiya, Sec 25 of the Health & Safety at Work Act: “Power to deal with cause of imminent danger” gives inspectors powers to seize / render harmless articles or substances that “he has reasonable cause” to believe is a cause of “imminent danger of serious personal injury”. The act doesn’t specify this further, but if you look at a dictionary definitions imminent would mean “about to happen”, “impending”, “inevitable” etc. Like most things, this would be at the discretion of the inspector (not sure if they have set guidelines as the enforcement guide on http://www.hse.gov.uk/en...swact/imminentdanger.htm doesn't give a definition) but it would appear to be a straight forward assessment, and one that would be hard to argue against. This term is also explained in reg8 of the Management of H&S Regulations: “Procedures for serious and imminent danger” which detailed necessary procedures, competency and arrangements for dealing with ‘imminent danger’. Again, no specific definition of “imminent” is given, but it could be argued that it is not necessary if we take the dictionary definition and justify any inclusion / exclusion through risk assessment - "imminent" may not be an objective a term as "reasonably practicable". Best Regards, Ian

I have just looked up the meaning of each word. Serious is giving cause for concern, Imminent is about to happen and harm is injure physically, mentally or moraly. Therefore a direct interpretation can be a situation that gives cause for concern about harm, physical, mental or moral that is about to happen or could happen in the immediate future. It should be remembered that the term serious imminent harm applies to a situation whereby to do something has the potential for that harm to be realised but does not apply to something that could result in harm later in time. By this I mean if the danger can be dealt with before there is likely to be a dangerous situation it is not immenent. Any thoughts on this interpretation?

Yes, the release of asbestos fibres could be considered as 'serious and imminent danger', even though the effects of asbestos related diseases are latent. It should also be noted the phrase 'serious and imminent danger' is subjective, in that some people may consider a situation in that way, whilst others may not. Company procedures take into account the subjective nature of this concept and allow for remediation or arbitration by a more senior or knowledgeable responsible person.

Ron The scenario was relation to 'Serious and Imminent Danger' trying to disprove the following quote "It should be remembered that the term serious imminent harm applies to a situation whereby to do something has the potential for that harm to be realised but does not apply to something that could result in harm later in time." I would have hoped that persons would place the controls prior to prevent the release.

I agree with Ray, aren't we going off at a tangent about "harm". The question, and indeed the regulations, are talking about imminent DANGER, so yes exposure to asbestos fibres would be an appropriate example. If you look at the operational circulars for HSE enforcers, they intentionally omit a definition of serious and imminent danger as "Where there is a potential for serious risk all Inspectors have a responsibility to ensure that the risk is appropriately mitigated immediately. It is not appropriate to provide a detailed definition of imminent danger, in order to enable inspectors to use their discretion." {quote: Operational Circular 217/05, Fire Safety Order, HSE 2009} They do give examples of imminent danger in the OC's for various subjects, but I agree with the HSE on this one that it is up to professionals to decide on a case by case basis. As stated earlier though, although it is subjective it is not as subjective as other H&S terms (e.g. practicable) and i'd gamble that most 'competent' H&S professionals would agree on a particular issue giving rise to serious and imminent danger. Regards, Ian