Our team of qualified, experienced engineers can provide your company with the ongoing inspection, testing, and certification services on all types of equipment which require a thorough examination under LOLER 1998, PUWER 1998.
Following inspection, all mandatory certification is provided in digital format, allowing you access to your certifications 24 hours a day on or off site . loler and Puwer.
Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) These Regulations, often abbreviated to PUWER, place duties on people and companies who own, operate or have control over work equipment.
If you are an employer or self-employed person providing lifting equipment for use at work, or you have control of the use of lifting equipment, then the Regulations will apply to you. They do not apply if you provide equipment to be used primarily by members of the public , for example lifts in a shopping centre.
However, such circumstances are covered by the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSW Act). While your employees do not have specific duties under LOLER, they do have general duties under the HSW Act and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (the Management Regulations), for example to take reasonable care of themselves and others who may be affected by their actions and to co-operate with others.
The Regulations cover workplaces where the HSW Act applies – this includes factories, offshore installations, agricultural premises, offices, shops, hospitals, hotels, places of entertainment etc.
You need to make sure that when using any lifting equipment the requirements of LOLER are met. For example, you should make sure that all lifting equipment is:
– sufficiently strong, stable and suitable for the proposed use. Similarly, the load and anything attached (eg timber pallets, lifting points) must be suitable;
– positioned or installed to prevent the risk of injury, eg from the equipment or the load falling or striking people;
– visibly marked with any appropriate information to be taken into account for its safe use, eg safe working loads. Accessories, eg slings, clamps etc, should be similarly marked.
Additionally, you must make sure that:
– lifting operations are planned, supervised and carried out in a safe manner by people who are competent;
– where equipment is used for lifting people it is marked accordingly, and it should be safe for such a purpose, eg all necessary precautions have been taken to eliminate or reduce any risk;
– where appropriate, before lifting equipment (including accessories) is used for the first time, it is thoroughly examined. Lifting equipment may need to be thoroughly examined in use at periods specified in the Regulations (ie at least six-monthly for accessories and equipment used for lifting people and, at a minimum, annually for all other equipment) or at intervals laid down in an examination scheme drawn up by a competent person. All examination work should be performed by a competent person (someone with the necessary skills, knowledge and experience);
– following a thorough examination or inspection of any lifting equipment, a report is submitted by the competent person to the employer to take the appropriate action.
The content above is Health and Safety Executive copyright © 2016
PUWER applies to all pieces of work equipment, a definition that the PUWER ACOP itself describes as “extremely wide”. The term covers any machinery, appliance, tool, or installation used in the workplace that could potentially pose a risk to employees. This includes, but is not limited to:
These regulations cover both new and old work equipment, as well as any that employees provide for their own use. To ensure the work equipment is fit for use at all times, it must go through periodic inspections by a competent person.
PUWER also applies whenever you are providing new work equipment for use on your business premises. As the duty holder, you must ensure that this equipment conforms with the requirements of the relevant European Community law and, if it is new, the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008. You must therefore ensure this work equipment:
It is also the employer’s duty to ensure that any risks that a piece of work equipment poses during regular use are controlled through the installation of guards where necessary. This generally applies to potentially hazardous machinery such as paper guillotines and circular saws.
What is a PUWER inspection?
The purpose of a PUWER inspection is to ensure that a piece of work equipment is safe to operate and any deterioration to the equipment is detected and remedied before it develops into a serious safety risk.
To qualify under PUWER regulations, work equipment must undergo periodic inspections to ensure it is safe to use. Each piece of equipment must also undergo an inspection when it is first installed and whenever it is relocated.
A PUWER inspection should focus on the parts of work equipment that are most likely to deteriorate and pose a risk to a user’s health and safety. Depending on the type of equipment and how often it is used, this may vary from a simple visual examination to a detailed inspection after it has been dismantled.
Simple hand tools generally only require minimal maintenance, and should be repaired or replaced if they deteriorate, to ensure the safety of your employees. More complex work equipment, such as machinery, will usually be accompanied by a user’s manual that will include suggestions regarding routine and specialist maintenance that needs to be performed at certain intervals. If you follow the manufacturer’s guidance and log each instance of maintenance performed by a competent person, this is usually enough to be covered by PUWER regulations.
A PUWER inspection should always include a look at the parts of the equipment that are necessary for the safe operation of equipment, such as emergency stop switches.
The frequency of the inspections is down to the employer’s discretion, but each piece of equipment should be regularly checked to ensure that its safety features are in full working order. The regularity of these inspections should take into account how frequently and intensely each piece of work equipment is used, as well as the risk to a user’s health and safety that would occur from malfunction or failure.
Those with a duty to ensure work equipment complies with PUWER regulations should refer to the user’s manual of more complex machinery for an indication of how frequently to perform an inspection. They should also take into consideration how frequently the equipment is used, as well as the conditions in which it is operated. For example, a piece of work equipment will need to be inspected more regularly if it is used on a construction site than if it is used in the less demanding environment of a warehouse.
The PUWER APOC also notes that an inspection is necessary whenever “exceptional circumstances” have occurred that may affect the safety of the work equipment. These “exceptional circumstances” include:
Copyright © 2024 Simpson Site Support Services - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy