Jurisdiction: Northern Ireland
Commencement: 21st October 2024
Amends: Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993



Mini Summary

 
The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993 sets out that personal protective equipment (PPE) relates to equipment designed to be worn or held by a person at work to protect against one or more risks. These Regulations aim to ensure that employers provide appropriate PPE to workers* to enable them to conduct their work safely.
 
*Workers include those who work for an employer under a contract of employment (such as traditional employees) or other work contracts (such as freelancers, contractors or agency workers).
 
The Regulations do not apply to forms of PPE detailed within specific Regulations such as those dealing with hazardous substances and radioactive materials.
 

The Regulations do not apply to the master or crew on sea-going ships. In addition, the Secretary of State for Defence may grant exemptions from the Regulations in the interests of national security.


Duties

 

Various duties apply and are available to view on the Legislation Update Service.

 
 

Amendment

 

Employers must provide appropriate free-of-charge personal protective equipment (PPE) to all workers who work for them under contract, such as freelancers, contractors and agency workers, and not only employees. Previously, the Regulations only required PPE to be provided to employees.

Minor technical changes are made updating references to current legislation and making the Regulations gender-neutral. 

 

Link to full government text

Ask any Health and Safety professional what their biggest confusion is in relation to the reporting of accidents in the workplace and the majority will say ‘when an accident is reportable under RIDDOR or not’.

So, what type of accident must be reported under RIDDOR?

RIDDOR requires deaths and injuries to be reported only when:

The term ‘work related’ at first appears straightforward, if the person is at work and suffers a reportable injury then surely it must be a RIDDOR… Right?

The HSE states that RIDDOR only requires you to report accidents if they are ‘work-related’, so let’s examine this term in more depth.

When deciding if the accident that led to the death or injury is work-related, the key issues to consider are whether the accident was related to:

If none of these factors are relevant to the incident, it is likely that a report will not be required. Having an accident at work does not automatically mean it is a RIDDOR. Therefore, to decide if an accident is reportable under RIDDOR the first question we need to be asking is if the accident relates to any of the above 3 factors.

The table below gives some examples of accidents that are, and are not, RIDDOR reportable (even though the injuries are the same in each scenario).

RIDDOR reportable accident Non RIDDOR reportable event
An employee was assaulted by a service user and suffered a specific injury. The service user assaulted the employee as he refused to let the service user drink alcohol as per the service users care plan. Reportable as the employee was acting in their work capacity and following the care plan. Two employees get into a fight over the latest football result causing one of the employees to suffer a broken arm. Not reportable as although the employees were in work, the argument was about an external matter and had nothing to do with work.
An employee was walking along the office corridor and tripped over a torn piece of carpet causing her to fall and suffer a specified injury. Reportable as the condition of the site or premises contributed to the accident. An employee was walking along the office corridor and tripped over her shoelaces that had come undone causing her to fall and suffer a specified injury. Not reportable as the condition of the site or premises did not contribute to the accident.
A factory worker had just finished for the day and, while reversing his vehicle in the staff car park, collided with another worker’s vehicle suffering a specified injury. The collision occurred due to an advertising board which obscured the driver’s visibility. Reportable as the condition of the site or premises contributed to where the accident occurred. A factory worker had just finished for the day and while reversing his vehicle in the staff car park collided with another worker’s vehicle suffering a specified injury. Not reportable, just because an accident takes place on work premises, this does not make it a work-related accident.

Hopefully the above reasoning offers some explanation as to the question of what is ‘out of, or in connection with work’, but further information can be found by reading INDG453.

When chemicals or other hazardous substances are used at work, it can put people’s health at risk.  Therefore, employers are required to control exposure to hazardous substances to prevent ill-health. The Compliance People’s consultant Mick Baah looks at the role and importance of training employees on how to safely work with hazardous substances.

Hazardous substances are found in nearly all work environments. These include:

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH)  is the specific legislation that requires employers to control substances that are hazardous to health. These regulations provide a useful framework of good practice which employers, and sometimes employees, must follow.

An important way for your organisation to maintain control of hazardous substances at work is to make sure that the workforce is educated on these hazardous substances, and importantly, made aware of the risk that may arise while working with them. Notably, employees’ lack of awareness of these risks is a common finding that is picked up during a substantial amount of legal compliance audits.

If employees don’t know what substances are hazardous, or how to use them properly, then the control measures that are put in place during the risk management process for hazardous substances will not be as effective. Therefore, providing essential training for employees to raise COSHH awareness will ensure workers remain safe and healthy.
So, what do employees need to know?
There is key information that employees need to know with regard to using hazardous substances, as stated in regulation 12 of The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH). This includes:

When it comes to providing this information, employers should explain the dangers of the hazardous substances to their employees and anyone else who needs to know.
It’s all in the delivery
How do you make the above information stick? The CoSHH Regulations require that employers ensure that employees are properly trained, informed and supervised. Just handing them a piece of paper and asking them to sign the bottom of it, may not be enough. So, it is important that any training and information that is relevant to them is delivered in such a way that is understandable. Therefore, the chance that it will be applied to the everyday working practice is improved. Whether this is through a toolbox talk, a training session, or a safe working procedure, it is important that the message is delivered correctly and effectively.

Provision of training, education and information to employees is key element of how an organisation can control and manage substances hazardous to health.

Important questions to ask are:

  1.  Do your employees understand exactly what the dangers of the hazardous substances that they work with are?
  2.  Is the training and information you provide relevant to them, easily understood and applied to the everyday working practice?

If you have identified some areas for improvement, why not get in touch with us? – We can offer a training solution for CoSHH awareness delivered virtually or face-to-face that can be bespoked to your business. Our professional team of consultants will be happy to help you further.