Guarding machinery in educational workshops.

Jeremy Procter explains the regulatory requirements placed on educational establishments for guarding hazardous machinery in workshops.

Educational establishments, as with all other employers in the UK, have a duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act etc 1974 to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of their workers and other persons who may be affected by the activities of the establishment.

Furthermore, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) require employers to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of all the risks to the health and safety of workers and others arising at or from a work activity.

According to the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), more than half of all accidents in the education sector are caused by slips or trips.

However, while most of these accidents result in only minor injuries, the potential exists for injuries of far greater severity in workshops where hazardous machinery is in operation.

This is where the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) are important.

These regulations place specific requirements on employers to ensure that all work equipment is safe.

Two of the main requirements are for employers to provide safe work equipment that conforms to relevant safety standards, and ensure that, where required, appropriate safety devices are available.

Although some schools, colleges and universities are fortunate in having state-of-the-art machine tools, it is more common to find older equipment in use.

This is because, unlike in industry, the machinery is not subject to the same heavy workload every day and it therefore lasts longer before it has to be replaced.

As a result, it is not unusual to find machinery in use that still has old-style safety features that, quite frankly, do not meet today's standards.

To conform with the requirements of PUWER, it is necessary to undertake formal risk assessments.

These assessments often highlight where there is a need to update safety-related control systems, machine guarding, warning signs and training.

Rotherham College of Arts and Technology, for example, recently reviewed health and safety in its workshop and completed a thorough risk assessment.

It was concluded that improved safeguarding was required to prevent students (and others) from coming into contact with the machinery and other equipment located in the workshop; hazards were present in the vicinity of manual and CNC (computer numerically controlled) machine tools, a robot and high-voltage motors.

Although safety was the primary concern, there was also a desire to reduce the number of times that emergency stop buttons were being pressed accidentally (or maliciously) on the CNC machine tools, robot and process control equipment - all of which operate unattended from time to time.

Furthermore, it was recognised that the guarding could, itself, be used as a teaching aid.

Various access options were therefore specified, so students could gain first-hand experience of alternative types of safety gate interlock as well as a safety light curtain.

The competitive tender from Procter Machine Guarding was accepted for a number of reasons.

First, the price for the Angel modular perimeter guarding was very attractive compared with the alternatives, yet the quality of the guarding was at least as high as anything else proposed.

The company was also able to supply and install the guarding in the required timescale in order that the teaching curriculum was not disrupted.

Another important factor was that Procter could supply the Angel guarding with a hard-wearing powder-coated finish to match the workshop's existing colour scheme.

In total some 30m of Angel guarding (consisting of 25 posts and 38 panels) was installed by Procter's own team within just two weeks of the receipt of order.

As well as the Angel system, Procter Machine Guarding also offers other modular perimeter guarding and bespoke machine guards.

To assist educational establishments that need to undertake machine risk assessments and ensure compliance with current standards, Procter Machine Guarding has prepared three free resources.

These are a risk assessment calculator and a safety distance calculator, both based on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and a "Guide to guarding standards" that is available as a PDF document.

Back to top