Safety procedure - power isolation

Use this safety procedure to manage the risks of maintenance work, where a failure to isolate power sources is a common source of serious injury.

Why you need it

This procedure is intended for all work involving any adjustment, cleaning or repair on powered equipment, any work adjacent to moving parts of machinery or involving the removal of guards. Examples of the types of hazard it can control during maintenance work are:

• exposure to live electrical conductors
• dangerous machines which may move unexpectedly
• equipment with stored energy, e.g. capacitors, springs under tension
• steam or pressurised hot liquids
• hydraulics
• compressed air
• potential energy from gravity
• fuels or chemicals which might be released unexpectedly.

How to use it

It’s especially useful to add a list of particular tasks for which the procedure applies - a space is provided for these to be described at the beginning of the document.

You should then work through the procedure, tailoring it so that it works within your business. Once complete, it should be signed and dated by the member of staff who prepared it and by a manager. It should then be distributed to all staff directly involved in the work and put into practice.