Electrical safety within the healthcare environment

Risk is present in everything we do and can never be eliminated entirely. Reducing risk is something we can, more often than not, control, but it has to be balanced against productivity and cost. Electricity, in Healthcare as an example, is a risk to everyone but not having it creates a higher risk; no lighting, no air conditioning, ventilation, water supply, or life support will significantly and negatively affect the patient journey. Therefore, we must use equipment and installations within the built environment that has inherent risk but which we must control to reduce the hazards associated with them as much as possible.
With electricity, it is quite simple, direct contact with it and in the absence of appropriately rated insulative PPE will cause harm if there is a path through the body to the earth. That harm will range from a small tingle or vibration to severe electric shock, fibrillation, internal and external burns, and in the worst circumstances death.

For this reason, we must avoid this contact. The EAWR 1989 Regulation 14 states that live working must not be conducted unless under specific circumstances and with strict control measures, therefore we must have a safe and approved method or process of isolating safely to ensure electrical equipment being worked on is dead.
The EAWR 1989 Regulation 13 states that precautions must be taken to prevent electrical equipment that is being worked on from becoming charged or live during that work.

Lock Out Tag Out (LOTO) is the procedure used to ensure that dangerous energy sources are isolated safely to render the equipment or circuit being worked on inoperable, dead and safe
The purpose of the presentation is to explain why we use LOTO and how we manage it. The following topics will be covered:
-Workplace Injuries -HSE Statistics -Identifying Danger
-Regulations -Responsibilities -Sources of Energy
-What is LOTO? -LOTO Equipment -LOTO Procedure

This session will be of interest to a

ll involved in electrical (and mechanical) safety on site. In particular we’d encourage you to invite your frontline trade staff and project team members, from apprentices through to operatives and supervisors… in fact anyone who is involved with, interested in, or has responsibility for electrical safety!

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