DATELINE: 29th September 2001

HSE INSPECTIONS UP
Britain's Health and Safety Executive stepped up its unannounced inspections of sport diver training operators during a two-month blitz in August and September.
The operation was spurred by an increase in the number of deaths and other incidents suffered by diving trainees while under instruction.
The inspections were to check that trainers were abiding by health and safety law, in particular the Diving at Work Regulations 1997. These define factors including the need for clear dive plans; responsible assessment of instructor to student ratio needs; correctly qualified instructors; and the provision of (and qualification to administer) first aid including oxygen.
Last year, trainees lost their lives at Babbacombe, the Isle of Wight, and Wastwater. This year, fatalities have occurred at Capernwray (two) and Stoney Cove. Some of the companies involved in the incidents are now subject to HSE enquiries.
The nationwide inspections were co-ordinated by two senior HSE diving inspectors, Mike Harwood and Dave Tee.
"In the past we have found that lack of sufficient supervision and inadequate instructor qualification - or lack of a valid medical certificate - have been common in cases of malpractice," Dave Tee told Divernet. "Incidents have increased unacceptably over the past two years, and our two-month blitz has been made possible by a reallocation of resources by the HSE.
"That shows how serious we are about forcing up the consistency of proper standards in recreational dive training."
One of the requirements of dive trainers is that they prepare, for every training dive they undertake, a written Diving Project Plan, with associated risk assessment.
The plan should detail aims of the dive and how it will be conducted, including the numbers of, and relationships between, instructors and pupils.
"Customers should be aware that they have a right to ask if a Diving Project Plan exists, and to see it for themselves," said Tee.
The issue of instructor-to-pupil ratios is an important one, highlighted by the recent enquiry into the death of a 17-year-old student in Scotland in 1999. The HSE does not specify rigid instructor-to-pupil ratios, but requires the trainer to "identify the minimum size of team for a safe diving operation based on the requirements of the risk assessment and diving project plan".
It adds: "For recreational diving instruction this needs to take into account the number of 'trainees' and appropriate instructor-to-student ratios in the water."
Where allegedly inadequate supervision has led to an incident, the case is judged on its merits.
"The HSE will assess the risk factor calculations for a specific dive plan, and come to decision as to whether the assessment was well judged or ill conceived," HSE inspector Mike Harwood told Divernet.
"It's largely a matter of common sense. Certainly, for diving in British waters, the assessment needs to take into account the possibility of loss of visibility, and the ratios that would be required to ensure a safe return to the surface."
What the HSE does specify is that the minimum number for a training diving group should be three - two under water and one on the surface, one of whom should be the diving supervisor.
The two under water should be "capable of rendering assistance to each other in the event of an emergency". One of one these divers can be a student, "provided that he or she has been trained in rescue techniques and has reached the minimum competency level required for this task set out by the appropriate recreational diving organisation".
This means that a novice diver with no rescue skills should be accompanied under water by more than one other diver. A commercially employed instructor who takes a beginner without rescue skills diving, one to one, is breaking the law.
Trainers are guided on the Diving at Work Regulations by Approved Codes of Practice. Five booklets cover sport diving, inshore and offshore commercial diving, media work, and scientific or archaeological activities.
The booklets are available at £9.95 each from: HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 6FS, tel 01787 881165, fax 01787 313995, web www.open.gov.uk/hse/hsehome.htm

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