The provision of outdoor activities is underpinned by legislation including the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and other later Acts and Regulations*. This legislation works together to keep people safe, including on outdoor adventurous activities. We have over 15 years’ experience of providing consultancy to businesses and other organisations that provide a wide range of outdoor (adventurous) activities and helping them understand this work to best practice in the industry.
One of the implications of this legislation is that employers should ensure that any personal protective equipment (PPE) provided should be in an ‘efficient state, efficient working order and in good repair’ *1 and that organisations should have systems in place to examine, test, clean, repair and replace equipment, to train staff and to store equipment appropriately. Much of the PPE equipment used in outdoor (adventurous) activities is also classified under LOLER*2. These regulations specify that items of equipment should be marked to enable them to be traced to their respective documents and that PPE should be thoroughly examined by a competent person *3 at a minimum of every 6 months.
We are perfectly placed to help your business understand this legislation, as a ‘competent person’ Jon can help you with any 6 month thorough PPE inspections, we can help you mark your PPE using Toughtags and we can help you to build a system to continue to manage your PPE. If you’re looking for software to help you manage your PPE then we can recommend the Papertrail software that works both on your computer and as an app on your phone www.papertrail.io. We are currently partnering with papertrail and are enjoying using their software. If you’re interested get in contact with them directly or feel free to ask us about it.
*other legislation includes Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 *1, Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER), Lifting Operation and Lifting Equipment Regulations (1998) *2 Work at Height 2005 (WAHR) and amended 2007, The Activity Centres (Young Persons’) Safety Act, Adventurous Activities Licencing Regulations.
*3 A competent person has sufficient theoretical and practical knowledge and experience of Personal Protective Equipment that they can carry out thorough and systematic inspections to detect defects or weaknesses that are or might become dangerous and assess how important they are in relation to the safety and continued us of the equipment