Health and Safety at Work Act.
People responsible for making decisions on the provision of bed rails and the care of people for whom they have been provided need to be aware of their duties under relevant health and safety legislation.
The Health and Safety at Work Act places duties on:
Employers
To avoid exposing those not in their employment (e.g. members of the public and patients) to health and safety risks.
Employees
To take reasonable care for the health and safety of themselves and others affected by their acts, and to co-operate with their employer on health and safety obligations.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations.
These require that employers should make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of people not in their employment which are as a result of or connected with the work being carried out. This relates to the individuals you support.
Employers also need to ensure that all employees who are responsible for selecting, fitting, maintaining and checking bed rails have received appropriate training.
Medical Devices Regulations and the General Product Safety Regulations.
Bed rails are ‘medical devices’, which fall under the authority of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
MHRA enforces the Medical Devices Regulations and the General Product Safety Regulations to ensure medical devices are acceptably safe.
Click on the button to open the MHRA’s published guidance “Safe use of bed rails” where you can find more detailed information.
Health and Safety Executive
The work of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) covers a varied range of activities including shaping and reviewing regulations, producing research and statistics and enforcing the law.
Click on the blue button to see HSE’s guidance for the “Safe use of bed rails”.
We hope you have got enough information from this course to know about the risks of using bed rails and you have saved important documents that you can use in your role. Any feedback you have for us to make this course better, please let us know. Now go and be awesome again looking after vulnerable people and doing the fantastic job you do. Thank you!
You have now completed our eLearning for Bed Rail Safety
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