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PUWER
If your company uses work equipment, you’re more than likely bound by PUWER. What’s PUWER, you may ask? Well if you use equipment and machinery in your business, and you don’t know, you really need to talk to us!!
But just in case, PUWER stands for the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. The regulations cover the work equipment and machinery used every day in companies and business throughout Great Britain and they’re designed to keep people safe wherever equipment and machinery is used at work.
What does PUWER mean for you?
Whatever the size of your business, if you use or control work equipment, even if you’re self-employed or not-for-profit, then you may have a legal obligation to follow the regulations; all based on risk.
You have a legal obligation to:
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identify hazards and note of anything that can cause harm;
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assess risks by considering the chance of harm actually being done;
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eliminate and reduce risks by asking if it’s possible to eliminate any of the risks, and;
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if it’s not possible to eliminate all the risks, listing ways to reduce them and identifying precautions to be taken.
How often do I need to do this?
The regulations don’t specify an exact interval between assessments, but it does require that work equipment in danger of deterioration (most equipment, then!) must be inspected at suitable intervals.
You must also have any new or newly-installed work equipment (this could include work equipment purchased second-hand or moved from one site to another) assessed for compliance with the regulations.
What do you need to do if you think your work equipment is covered by PUWER?
Sounds complicated, right? Well, not for us! We’ve been trained and qualified by experts in the field and can carry out your PUWER assessment on all your machinery.
What can we do for you?
We know that most businesses will have applied PUWER at some point, but we also know that many don’t have the resources or capacity to keep those assessments up-to-date. Others see the benefit of an objective, independent, review carried out by companies like ours!
We have the expertise and experience to help you navigate these regulations in a cost effective and time-efficient way.
We’ll work with you to identify the equipment and machinery covered by PUWER. We’ll then carry out a comprehensive audit and risk assessment of your work equipment and create an action plan for you to complete, under our guidance, to ensure you comply with the regulations.
This might seem like a real pain, but can you really put a value – either in time or cost – on keeping your people safe from harm? So don’t put it off, give us a call and we’ll get right on it for you.