Health and Safety for Beginners Forums

I was assuming that all the flats have access to the internal stairway, but the external one was an 'extra' for 9 of them?

If so, I think I agree with the FRA, but I know basically naff-all about Building Control, so can't really help.

Not quite what you are asking, but: Properly research the company. If they are housing-related, see if you can find any interesting new acquisitions or renovations that have health and safety ramifications and ask them what steps they've taken to address the ones that seem the most complicated. This...

I used to work for one of the companies that supplied refrigeration to M&S (and other supermarkets). Refrigeration companies worst nightmare to hear a whole store has gone down. Queue a race against time to get contractors and engineers to site! During one situation where an engineer had visite...

That was all from when I was doing H&S in a branch of Marks and Spencer. The deaths and stroke were all customers, and all were fairly old. Thankfully the worst that ever happened to a member of staff were non-life-threatening head injuries and similar. With the deaths, the ambulance staff were ...

Just to point out that Stephen's experiences aren't that strange, I could add: Two fires + dozens of false alarm evacuations. Two deaths due to heart failure, one stroke, one anaphylactic shock. Two accidental sprinkler activations. One flood by damaged external water main. One child suspected of pr...

The only potential 'fix' I can see is to have the keys in an accessible location, so can they be stored securely at a low-risk site disconnected from the main building? If that's not possible, then you are looking at managing a rubbish situation. Options to look into would be whether there are any n...

Not something I've ever thought of, so you are going to get a 'stream of consciousness' reply... There are those pipe-freezing kits that plumbers will sometimes use in an emergency. No doubt pressurised gas on a movable emergency cart would come with its own issues, and I've a suspicion that once th...

I was reading those as separate:

Check all flat doors 3-monthly

and

Upgrade any flat doors to currant standards if you have dodgy cladding.

So...if fire alarm is triggered on one of the unoccupied floors, and there is no sign of smoke/fire, would it typically be expected (if they are on site) for the receptionist / security to go and investigate?? It depends. Personally, I've always operated an 'if it is safe to do so' approach. If the...

So every single one of our flat doors to be checked every 3 months? 90 000 checks. Every three months. 100 per day. Half of which will be 'No access'. Okay then. And I've read the bolded section three times, and I'm still not quite sure what they mean. Are they really just saying 'to be competent yo...

So your scenario is already covered. Tenant sees fire, raises alarm, leaves building, calls FRS. Or Alarm is activated, tenant leaves building, calls FRS. Either way, ARC contacts keyholder who hops into car and is on site shortly after FRS to liaise if necessary and reset alarms / raise repairs / w...

With first aiders, you may be able to get away with having more people trained to a lesser degree - perhaps having taken the 1 day course. Ultimately you'll need to do a risk assessment to determine what level of coverage your premises require. With the fire marshalls, you could simply increase the ...