What is a permit to work? How can your site introduce a permit to work system that ensures safety and legal compliance? In short, a permit to work often represents the difference between a safe industrial site and one you’d rather steer clear of.
Take the recent explosion in an oil treatment tank which occurred after contractors cut through a pipe at Stanlow Oil Terminal in Cheshire. A permit to work had been copied from the previous week despite a change in the hazard profile. ESL Fuels, which owned the lower-tier COMAH site at Ellesmere Port where it manufactured fuel products, was fined £100,000 over the incident with costs of £17,000 awarded to the HSE. View full article (Outdated permit to work found in Stanlow tank explosion).
Permit to work video guide
Permit to Work Systems forms an integral part of our safe system of work, ensuring risks associated with specific jobs are assessed and controlled before work commences. Those responsible must therefore ask:
- What are the essential features of an effective Permit to Work System?
- What sort of tasks do they cover?
Health and safety specialist, John Reynolds, helps you get to grips with these and other key points surrounding permit to work systems.
More advice on permit to work
If you need advice on creating and managing permit to work systems to control work such as maintenance activities on chemical plant and so prevent a major accident, our health and safety specialists are standing by to help.
