Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Press Releases
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has today published Safety in electrical testing at work: General guidance (INDG354), a new booklet on how to reduce injuries during electrical testing.
The booklet provides basic guidance on safe electrical testing at work and is intended for anyone who runs or manages a workplace where electrical testing is carried out, as well as for the people doing the actual testing.
The guidance is complemented by four new documents - Engineering Information Sheets (EIS) 35 to 38 - which give more detailed information about specific types of testing: Servicing and repair of domestic appliances (EIS35); Servicing and repair of audio, TV and computer equipment (EIS36); Switchgear and control gear (EIS37); and Products on production lines (EIS38).
The guidance covers electrical testing in all situations where equipment such as domestic appliances is being tested. Typically, this could be on the production line, at a repair workshop or even in the home when a service engineer has been called to carry out a service or repair a fault.
Injury and death can occur when live electrical parts are exposed and can be touched, or when metalwork that is meant to be earthed becomes live at a dangerous voltage. The most dangerous injuries are those caused by electric shock. Such accidents are not always confined to the person doing the job; other employees and even customers have received fatal or serious injuries.
Dr John Powell, Head of HSE's Engineering National Group, said:
"Electrical testing accidents can affect both the knowledgeable and the uninformed person. At one time, some 33% of all electrical accidents and fatals were due to unsafe testing. Although the figures have improved, we all need to do better."
Copies of the following free publications are available from HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury, Suffolk, CO10 2WA, tel: 01787 881165 or fax: 01787 313995, or can be ordered online at http://www.hsebooks.com.
Call HSE's InfoLine, tel: 0845 345 0055
or write to: HSE Information Services, Caerphilly Park, Caerphilly
CF83 3GG.
Published on the HSE web site on 15 May 2002