A new publication by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) a leaflet, entitled Drycleaners – Are you in control?, is distributed free to assist cleaners assess their own health and safety performance against a basic set of 35 questions.
The leaflet assumes that drycleaning can be a risky business involving pressurised steam, electricity, chemical solvents and manual handling. There is a potential to cause injury to people and throw in the odd bit of asbestos insulation and a scattering of wet-cooling towers and you have all the ingredients for a major health crisis! The UK’s drycleaning industry causes relatively few health and safety problems. This is not because it is free from hazard but because most cleaners keep the hazards under control. However, HSE inspectors take a strong line when they find exceptions to this rule.
“The most common reason for us to serve legal enforcement notices on drycleaners is their failure to arrange for thorough examinations of pressure vessels such as steam boilers” said Philip Purkis, leader of the HSE Sector Group working with the drycleaning industry. “We have also investigated a number of cases where people have been affected by exposure to cleaning solvents, either because of poor machine maintenance or unsafe working procedures.
“Two drycleaners have recently been heavily fined by the courts for their failure to control the risk of legionellosis in wet cooling towers.” The HSE leaflet summarises the hazards to be found in drycleaning. This information is valuable to everyone working in the industry, not just owners and managers. By making sure that everyone in the business gets to see a copy, employers will be helping to satisfy legal duties to give information to employees of any risks they face in their work.
It has 35 questions requiring a simple yes/no answer. The questions are aimed at minimum legal requirements, rather than recommended best practice. So if the answer to any question is ‘No’ or ‘Don’t know’ it is a sure sign that action needs to be taken to comply with the law.
The leaflet cannot be a complete guide to what needs to be done, but there are a number of industry bodies able to give health and safety advice if the way ahead is not obvious. Cleaners who find themselves giving a negative answer to lots of questions would be well advised to book themselves into one of the many training courses on health and safety which the industry makes available.
Blind spot Chris Tebbs of the FCRA believes that when a business depends on one or two people it can be relatively easier for some aspect of health and safety to be overlooked just because of a blind spot, possibly due to overload of work. “Taking the short time required to work through this checklist should throw up any major areas of weakness” he said.
However, companies running a number of outlets could also find the leaflet useful in monitoring standards. In an effort to maintain nationally consistent standards, one group has decided to collect results of the questionnaire from all their premises . It is hoped that more multi-site companies will follow suit.
HSE has agreed with TSA and FCRA that the questions represent the essence of what a health and safety inspector will look for on a routine visit to a drycleaners. Inspectors will continue to use their discretion about which lines of enquiry to follow-up, but they are being encouraged to use the leaflet as a starting point.
Murray Simpson of TSA welcomed this initiative. “We are looking for a fair and consistent approach to our industry from the enforcing authorities, just as we would hope that drycleaners across the country will achieve consistently good standards of health and safety.” Agreeing common inspection priorities will be particularly important in the two-year drycleaning ‘synergy’ pilot which begins this summer in Scotland. Under the pilot scheme, responsibility for health and safety law enforcement in all drycleaners in Scotland will transfer from HSE to Scottish local authorities. Drycleaning premises registered with HSE in Scotland will be individually notified of the transfer before it takes place.
The pilot is part of a wider scheme which is looking at fresh ways in which HSE and local authorities can work together to maximise their contribution to health and safety enforcement.
Drycleaners who have not received a copy of the leaflet, or who would like more copies, can contact HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2WA; Tel: 01787 881165; Fax: 01787 313995. Single copies are free. Multi-packs of 15 leaflets are available to buy.
