A DSEAR Risk Assessment is a vital way for duty holders to protect employees, members of the public, and property from the risk of fires or explosions due to dangerous substances, such as extremely flammable gases, highly flammable liquids, oxidising liquids/powders, and combustible dusts, explosive atmospheres, and substances that are corrosive to metals. DSEAR Risk Assessments are a legal requirement in most workplaces, and this article aims to help you clarify who can carry out a DSEAR Risk Assessment for your business.
What does a DSEAR Risk Assessment entail?
In order to reach DSEAR compliance, a DSEAR Risk Assessment must be carried out for your premises. A DSEAR Assessment entails firstly identifying what dangerous substances and potentially explosive atmospheres may occur in the workplace, and once these are identified, putting in place suitable control measures to either remove those risks or, where this is not possible, control them. For example, a business may identify an extremely flammable gas, such as acetylene for welding, in their workplace and can then work to remove this risk or control it.
From the findings of the risk assessment, if a risk cannot be eliminated, DSEAR requires control measures to be implemented in the following order:
- Reduce the quantity of dangerous substances to a minimum
- Avoid or minimise releases of dangerous substances
- Control releases of dangerous substances at source
- Prevent the formation of a dangerous atmosphere
- Collect, contain, and remove any releases to a safe place (for example, through ventilation)
- Avoid ignition sources
- Avoid adverse conditions (for example, exceeding the limits of temperature or control settings) that could lead to danger
- Keep incompatible substances apart.
In addition to these control measures, DSEAR requires mitigation measures to be put in place. These can include:
- Reducing the number of employees exposed to the risk
- Providing plant that is explosion resistant
- Providing plant that is corrosion resistant
- Providing explosion suppression or explosion relief equipment
- Taking measures to control or minimise the spread of fires or explosions
- Providing suitable personal protective equipment.
Further to this, a DSEAR assessment will entail producing plans and procedures to deal with potential future accidents and emergencies involving dangerous substances. You can find out more about what the DSEAR Regulations 2002 require duty holders to do here.
Who can carry out a DSEAR Risk Assessment?
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) stipulate that a DSEAR Risk Assessment must be carried out by a ‘competent person.’ While there is no set definition for what a ‘competent person’ is, and no licence to prove competence as a DSEAR assessor, it is imperative that DSEAR Risk Assessments are carried out by qualified, competent experts with specialist knowledge of the regulations.
In addition to a competent DSEAR Risk Assessor, it will also be beneficial to your organisation to ensure that employees are properly informed about and trained to control or deal with the risks of dangerous substances and potentially explosive atmospheres. As DSEAR deals with dangerous substances and potentially explosive atmospheres that could lead to fire and explosion, competent and knowledgeable DSEAR assessors are vital to ensure the health and safety of employees and members of the wider public.
At the Fire Protection Association, our specialist consultants can conduct thorough DSEAR assessments for your organisation. Our comprehensive reports will provide recommendations on the actions that need to be followed to ensure the safety of your employees and others who may be on site, limit the risks to the premises from damage from fire and explosions, and achieve compliance with the DSEAR Regulations. You can find out more about our DSEAR Risk Assessment service here.
Please be aware that considerable efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained within this article at the time of publication, however any legislative (or other) changes that come into effect after this may render the information out of date until it is reviewed and updated as part of the FPA’s content review cycle.