HSE issues important new gas safety advice

HSE Press Release E200:02 - 24 October 2002

Important new safety advice for gas consumers has been published today by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The HSE advice leaflet, Gas Appliances: Get Them Checked, Keep Them Safe, now explains:

• The importance of obtaining urgent medical advice if you suspect you have been exposed to carbon monoxide (CO). CO quickly leaves the blood, and tests may be inaccurate if taken more than four hours after exposure;
• The potential availability of free gas safety checks for the over-60s, the chronically sick and disabled with the Priority Service Register scheme, which all gas suppliers are required to operate;
• New information on how to make sure a gas installer is registered with the Council for Registered Gas Installers (CORGI);
• The potential contribution of CO alarms as a useful back-up precaution, provided these meet current safety standards; however, CO alarms must NOT be regarded as a substitute for proper installation and maintenance;
• New easy-to-understand diagrams showing the difference between safe and dangerous gas appliances; and
• Where to obtain further advice on non-gas fossil fuels (e.g. coal, oil, wood).

Commenting on the new advice leaflet, Brian Etheridge, HSE's Head of Gas and Transport Safety Policy, said today: "Deaths and serious injuries from CO poisoning are preventable tragedies. You should not be complacent and think that CO poisoning can't happen to you or your family. It can. Get your gas appliances checked every year by a qualified CORGI-registered installer and keep your family safe.

"Other issues included in our advice leaflet Get Them Checked for the first time are a more positive endorsement of CO alarms as a useful back-up, advice to seek medical attention promptly after suspected poisoning, and identifying a registered gas installer. I am also pleased that now, courtesy of the Gas Forum, we have a diagram to explain in a simpler way the operation of safe and unsafe appliances.

"We are enormously grateful to the many people who have helped put together this vastly improved public safety information. I would like to thank in particular Energywatch, the Government's consumer watchdog for gas and electricity, for their advice on the Priority Service Register. I hope that this useful service will now become better known."

David Sidebottom, Energywatch Director for the North West, said:

"We welcomed the opportunity of working with the HSE on such an important message. The leaflet will help raise awareness of the practical steps people can take to ensure their gas appliances are safe. Too often people simply don't think about the dangers of faulty gas appliances and put off having them serviced. We want this to change.

"We particularly want to encourage older people and people with disabilities to find out if they qualify for a free annual gas safety check through their gas supplier's Priority Service Register. We believe thousands of people miss out on this free gas safety check every year, but this leaflet gives us an opportunity to tell more people and make a real difference to the take-up of a valuable service."

Stephanie Trotter of CO-Gas Safety commented:

"CO-Gas Safety welcomes this guidance on the safety of heating and cooking appliances and congratulates the HSE for involving so many bodies in the content of this leaflet - itself a great deal of hard work. We are particularly pleased that although this is a gas safety leaflet, there is an explanation that any fuel that burns can give rise to CO poisoning.

"We are also delighted that in addition to the normal precautions, such as regular proper servicing of appliances and flues as well as ventilation, it encourages the use of CO alarms as a back-up precaution and draws attention to the fact that such alarms must be BS 7860 or BS EN 50291, i.e. have an audible alarm warning. We hope that people will take notice of this leaflet and that many unnecessary deaths and injuries will be avoided."

Brian Etheridge added:

"In a move to ensure that this important information reaches all parts of the community, HSE has arranged for the leaflet - and a revised leaflet on landlords' duties under gas legislation, also published today - to be printed in 12 community languages (besides English). We are also planning to add text in these languages to the existing Gas Safety Homepage on HSE's website.

Leaflets will be available through HSE Books within the next four to six weeks in the following community languages: Albanian; Arabic; Bengali; Chinese; Czech; Gujarati; Hindi; Polish; Punjabi; Turkish; Urdu; and Welsh. You will also be able to download versions (pdf) of these leaflets, including the English version, from: www.hse.gov.uk/gas

Notes to editors

1. The advice is drawn from HSE's Fundamental Review of Gas Safety 2000/2001, which identified the case for improving safety by advising the public of several key safety issues. In addition to advice routinely publicised previously through leaflets, HSE has developed the new advice to consumers in partnership with several external stakeholders representing the gas industry, consumer groups and the rental sector.

Copies of Gas Appliances: Get Them Checked, Keep Them Safe (INDG238) and Landlords - A Guide To Landlords' Duties: Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 (INDG285) are available from HSE Books.

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