HSE publish multilingual leaflets for summer gas safety checks

HSE Press Release: E082:04 - 8 June 2004

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published a series of leaflets providing guidance for landlords and important new safety advice for gas consumers in 12 different languages.

The leaflet Gas Appliances: Get Them Checked, Keep Them Safe provides new information on the need to obtain urgent medical advice if you suspect you or your family have been exposed to carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. Your doctor will need to take a blood or breath sample. However, CO quickly leaves the blood and tests may be inaccurate if taken more than four hours after exposure has ceased.

Symptoms of CO poisoning can mimic many common ailments and may easily be confused with flu, or simple tiredness. If in doubt consult your doctor.

The leaflet also tells you how to ensure your gas installer is registered with the Council for Registered Gas Installers (CORGI) and provides new easy-to-understand diagrams showing the difference between safe and dangerous gas appliances.

It also mentions the potential contribution of CO alarms as a useful back-up precaution, but emphasises that they must not be regarded as a substitute for proper installation and maintenance by a CORGI registered installer.

'Landlords - A Guide to landlords' duties: Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998', also available in a variety of languages, explains landlords duties to ensure safety of gas appliances and flues, including annual safety checks.

This leaflet also tells landlords how to ensure their gas installer is registered with CORGI.

HSE's Gas Safety Website, at http://www.hse.gov.uk/gas/index.htm, offers printable versions of these information leaflets, as well as useful advice and information for members of the public, including a range of videos for consumers to watch.

Patrick Maple, of Gas Safety Policy at HSE, said; "Now that summer is here, it is a good time for landlords to get their tenants' gas appliances checked. Should maintenance be necessary, it is less inconvenient for tenants compared to carrying out the same exercise in the middle of winter. Private residents would also do well to have their gas appliances checked when there is less reliance on using them. These translated leaflets have been produced to increase accessibility to gas safety information, particularly in getting gas appliances checked."

Notes to editors

1. Gas safety leaflets are available online as PDF files at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/gasindex.htm or by calling HSE's Gas Safety Advice Line on freephone 0800 300 363.

2. Languages available include Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Czech, Gujarati, Hindu, Polish, Punjabi, Turkish, Urdu and Welsh.

3. The leaflets demonstrate HSE's commitment towards the joint Health and Safety Commission (HSC) and HSE Race Equality Scheme launched in May 2002. HSC and HSE each have a duty to publish a race equality scheme. However, because the work of both organisations is so closely aligned, they have decided to issue a single scheme that commits both organisations to working in partnership to achieve improvement. A revised edition was published in September 2003 and takes account of a consultation undertaken with stakeholders since the launch, including employers and workers from ethnic minorities, and updates HSE's progress with actions. The Race Equality Scheme, September 2003 edition can be viewed at http://www.hse.gov.uk/hsc/res.pdf

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