Update Details: A new Health and Safety update has been issued on Working in Hot Weather. The full article has been emailed to subscribers with the H&S updates preference and is available as a PDF in the Update Service folder.
Why Working in Hot Weather Matters
Hot spells that were once rare are now a regular feature of the UK summer, and each one changes the risks people face at work. Heat makes physical work harder, slows concentration, and at the extreme leads to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. It affects outdoor workers most obviously, but warehouses, kitchens and top-floor offices can be just as demanding. There is no legal maximum workplace temperature, so the duty falls on each employer to judge what is reasonable and to control the risk.
What the Working in Hot Weather Update Covers
The update takes the practical approach, starting where every job should start: with a risk assessment. It works through the factors that build heat risk, the work itself and how physical it is, the environment and how much heat and sun it involves, and the people doing it, since age, health, medication and pregnancy all affect how someone copes.
It then covers spotting the early signs of heat stress before they become serious, and the straightforward, low-cost controls that make the biggest difference, from rescheduling heavy work and providing shade and water through to relaxing clothing, cooling indoor spaces and briefing the team on what to watch for.
Getting the Full Working in Hot Weather Update
The full update, along with the supporting risk assessments for managing work in hot and extreme temperatures, is provided to subscribers as part of the update service.
Health and Safety updates are issued as part of the ISO and legal update service and the content is also saved to the Update Service folder (this is in the alphaZ subscribers section) where they can be downloaded in pdf format and used for providing topic-specific training or for sending out as an update to workers.
