EQUIPMENT & TOOLS – PUWER REGULATIONS
Before & after
There are a variety of health and safety regulations in the UK. In this article,
Operations Engineer explores the Provision and Use of Work Equipment
Regulations 1998
Just three days before the UK
lockdown over Coronavirus, EGL
Homecare Limited (of Camp eld
Road, Shoeburyness) pleaded
guilty to a breach of Regulation
11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work
Equipment Regulations (PUWER) 1998
(see www.is.gd/yemira).
Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court
heard that an agency worker at EGL
Homecare Limited su ered a severe
crush injury to his arm on 19 June 2019
as he attempted to remove dirt from a
press roller at the address on Camp eld
Road, Shoeburyness. He was working on
a production line that glued sponge to
abrasive sheets to make scourer sponges.
His job was to remove the sheets of
scourer sponges from the conveyor on to
a pallet when his right hand got dragged
into the nip point of two in-running
rollers up to his shoulder. The worker was
diagnosed with forearm compartment
syndrome, had an operation on his arm
and had to stay in hospital for six days.
An investigation by the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE) found that the
company failed to provide a tunnel guard
on the press roller to prevent access to
the rollers. PUWER Regulation 11 relates
to ‘dangerous parts of machinery’ (www.
is.gd/wawafi ) and the company was ned
£80,000 and ordered to pay costs of
£5,314.08.
Since then, time has since moved
on and lockdown restrictions due to
Coronavirus are now being eased across
the UK, with people beginning to return to
working life and what is described as the
‘new normal’.
Dr Karen McDonnell, occupational
safety and health policy adviser at the
Royal Society for the Prevention of
Accidents (RoSPA), says: “Since the
beginning of lockdown much has changed
– people are home working or on furlough,
and messages about good hygiene and
social distancing have become part of our
daily conversations.
“However in the pre- and post-Covid
world, the PUWER regulations and their
enforcement remain a constant. Their
application to xed machinery, mobile
work equipment and power presses
does, if anything, become magni ed as
the phased return to working life postlockdown
begins.”
The Provision and Use of Work
Equipment Regulations 1998 are
often abbreviated to PUWER. They
replaced the original PUWER regulations
introduced in 1992 and deal with the work
equipment and machinery used every
day in workplaces, such as factories,
construction sites, farms, hospitals,
o ces and shops – wherever equipment
and machinery is used at work.
WHAT DOES PUWER DO?
“PUWER places a duty on individuals
and companies who either own, operate
or have control over work equipment,”
explains Tariva Thomas, senior associate
at solicitors Wright Hassall. “By its
nature, it is a very wide ranging and allencompassing
piece of legislation and it is
important that individuals and companies
who fall within the parameters of the
legislation have a good grip of what the
regulations require of them. At a basic
level, PUWER requires that any equipment
which is provided for use at a workplace
is: suitable for the intended use; safe
for use; maintained and inspected to
guard against any deterioration; used by
workers or employees who have been
adequately trained to use the equipment;
and accompanied by any additional health
and safety measures.
“A common misconception often arises
around what constitutes work equipment
– and it is this misconception that can
lead to prosecution. Once again, this is
very wide; work equipment is categorised
By Adam O ord
Tiko/stock.adobe.com
54 www.operationsengineer.org.uk Autumn 2020
Andrey Popov /stock.adobe.com
/yemira)
/stock.adobe.com
/www.operationsengineer.org.uk
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