Five
pieces of health and safety guidance have been combined to help employers more
quickly and easily understand how to protect their workers from dangerous
substances and explosive atmospheres. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has
consolidated five Approved Codes of Practice (ACOPs) under the Dangerous
Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations (DSEAR), covering issues from
plant design and operation, through to maintenance.
The consolidated
document (which has been named / numbered L138) is relevant to businesses
handling or storing flammable substances. It is available to download from the
HSE website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/l138.htm
The
new ACOP is being introduced following public consultation and ministerial and
HSE Board approval.
Karen
Clayton, who is Director of HSE’s Long Latency Health Risks Division,
explained: “The text is now clearer and simpler overall and merging the five
ACOPs eliminates repetition across the original documents. Navigation has been
improved with an enhanced contents list to enable the dutyholder to find the
advice that is of most interest to them.”
Legal
responsibilities (i.e. the legal requirements of the DSEAR Regulations) to
protect workers’ safety are not altered at all by the redrafting of the ACOP.
No comments:
Post a Comment