Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Entertainment and
leisure
The guidance in HSG179 is aimed primarily at swimming pools, but it also covers paddling pools, segregated areas of rivers, lakes and the sea, and other non-standard facilities. We have prepared this note to clear up any uncertainty over just how the guidance applies to such facilities. We do not want unnecessary precautions to cause people, including children, to miss out on opportunities for fun and healthy exercise.
Paragraphs 15 - 41 of HSG179 summarise the health and safety legislation with which all pool operators must comply. There are no specific health and safety regulations governing swimming pools (or paddling pools and other non-standard facilities). As far as public safety is concerned, Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 requires employers to conduct their undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the public is not exposed to risks to health and safety. This general duty is supplemented by the requirement under regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 that employers make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to members of the public to help decide what measures need to be taken. The law does not prescribe what control measures would be reasonably practicable in each and every case. That is a judgment that has to be made by individual operators on the basis of the particular risks, which they are best placed to assess. The overarching duty is to prevent exposure to risk so far as is reasonably practicable. This does not mean operators should incur disproportionate costs in implementing measures that anticipate relatively remote risks.
HSG179, like other HSE guidance, is not a compendium of legal requirements. It is simply intended to help pool operators meet the goal-setting requirements described above. Following the guidance should ensure that you are complying with the law, but it is not compulsory and other action can be taken to achieve compliance. HSG179 necessarily covers a wide range of facilities and the circumstances in which they can be used. Clearly, not all the advice given can sensibly be applied in all those situations. In particular, it would be a matter for concern if access to facilities, such as free-standing paddling pools or open-water swimming pools, were being restricted because of a mistaken assumption that control measures generally applicable to conventional pools should be applied as a matter of course to such other facilities. The rest of this note addresses some of the questions that have arisen about these facilities and indicates which parts of the guidance are generally relevant and which are less so. It must be emphasised that, in all situations, the pool operator is responsible for carrying out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment and taking the precautions necessary to protect the public as far as is reasonably practicable. Saying that part of the guidance is not generally relevant to any facility other than a conventional swimming pool means that the specific advice in that part, especially the control measures discussed, are targeted at ‘normal’ swimming pools and unlikely to be relevant to other facilities. It does not mean that an operator can omit necessary elements of the risk assessment. If the assessment indicates that control measures not normally applicable in a non-conventional situation are appropriate in a given case, they should be applied.
Yes - but how much of it is relevant depends on the particular circumstances. Where a paddling pool is part of a swimming facility, it should be included in the pool safety operating procedure for the entire complex, and most of HSG179 would be relevant. Where, however, a paddling pool is free-standing, eg in a park, then much less of the general guidance will be relevant. The sections on ‘General management of health and safety’ and ‘The practicalities of managing health and safety‘ should be read carefully, but the remainder of the guidance, apart from the specific advice in paragraph 264, is unlikely to be relevant.
This is not generally necessary. However, much will depend on what the risk assessment shows to be necessary to ensure adequate hygiene - manual disinfection may well be appropriate in some circumstances.
Not necessarily. As with disinfection procedures, it will depend on the risk assessment.
No. It only applies where swimming is actively encouraged. If people choose to swim in open water where swimming is not actively encouraged, it is reasonable to assume that they take appropriate personal responsibility for their own safety.
Yes, but not all parts are equally applicable. The sections on ‘General management of health and safety’ and ‘The practicalities of managing health and safety’ are generally relevant. Most of the advice in the section on ’Physical environment’ will not be relevant to naturally occurring features. However, you should take account of the guidance on man-made features, eg paragraph 87 on the design of steps and ladders, paragraph 101 on diving platforms, and paragraph 104 on water slides. Much of the section on ‘Supervision arrangements to safeguard pool users’ is relevant, but Table 2 (lifeguard numbers) and Figure 3 (continuous/occasional pool supervision) have been drawn up for standard, man-made pools. The remaining sections are largely irrelevant to open-water facilities.
No. This is a matter that must be considered as part of the risk assessment for any pool. The key advice is that given in paragraph 186 to 189, and Figure 3 should be read as a complementary illustration of that advice. Paragraph 187 sets out the criteria that would normally determine whether there should be continuous supervision. However, these are strong recommendations and not absolute requirements - there may be circumstances in which a risk assessment shows that, despite one or more of those criteria being met, people can swim safely without continuous supervision.
Sensible health and safety is about managing risks and not eliminating them. Proper risk assessment should result in precautions appropriate to the particular circumstances.