It's essential to understand the risk areas within a building when carrying out refurbishment or demolition works. You don't want to start smashing down a wall if there's a load of asbestos behind it!
So if you're responsible for an occupied building, you need to make sure you know where the asbestos risks are to protect tradespeople and occupants under your care.
Asbestos is heavily regulated since it can cause serious health issues to anyone exposed to its airborne fibres. And its use in building materials has been banned in most countries.
In the UK, the Health and Safety body (HSE) states that anyone responsible for maintaining a building containing asbestos must manage asbestos risks and protect its inhabitants.
Managing your asbestos risks starts with an asbestos survey, and you can enlist the help of an asbestos professional to survey your property.
But what about when you have multiple properties or a large estate? Keeping track of different asbestos survey reports may not be easy to manage.
To make it easier for Duty Holders to manage risks, we're developing an online Compliance Portal that lets you view and manage your compliance risks in one place.
It's worth noting that we're not limiting this feature to asbestos surveying; you'll be able to manage risks for all compliance types (e.g. Legionella, Fire Safety etc.), not just asbestos risks.
We want you to have the freedom to choose the best software for your needs. Not the software dictated by your client or supplier.
That's why our new Compliance Portal will run independently of our asbestos reporting software, Flow Mobile Surveying, as a standalone software product.
We believe that operating the Compliance Portal in this way is the most ethical choice. We don't want to force anyone to use our asbestos software to access the portal. That type of "vendor lock-in" behaviour is common in other software companies, but it leaves a bad taste in our mouths.
Yes, we'll integrate with our surveying software 👍
While we plan to offer the new compliance portal independently, that doesn't mean we can't provide users of our asbestos reporting software with some significant advantages when using both platforms.
There will likely be a "one-way" integration that allows Flow Mobile Surveying users to sync reports directly into the Compliance Portal. Nice!
The Compliance portal will let you manage your compliance reports, risks, and actions in one place:
Manage Compliance Reports
In the initial version of the compliance portal, you'll be able to draw "zones" on a map📍 and allocate your reports to each area.
You'll be able to use printed PDF reports or reports generated using Flow Mobile Surveying; we plan to make it as flexible as possible.
Manage Risks
Managing your reports is the first step to managing your compliance responsibilities. You'll also need to keep track of any risk areas within the building so you can keep tradespeople safe when they carry out work.
The way you quantify risks will depend on your country:
🇬🇧 United Kingdom (HSG 264 Standard)
Asbestos scores range between 2 and 12, based on the product type, the extent of damage, surface treatment, and asbestos type.
🇳🇿 New Zealand (Worksafe Standard):
Asbestos scores range from 1-9 because all asbestos fibres are treated as equally dangerous.
Manage Actions
Following any survey, your surveyor may recommend follow-up actions, which could include removing the risk item or seeking further help. We'll allow you to manage these actions and "tick them off" as you complete them.
No, this isn't a replacement for an asbestos management plan.
This feature will serve as an online asbestos register, similar to the UK National Asbestos Register (UKNAR), that will also let you manage tasks and actions based on the recommendations of the asbestos professionals who carried out the surveys.
But none of this is a replacement for an asbestos management plan which will include other important information.
While the portal won't be a complete asbestos management plan, it'll include the recommendations and actions that let you manage asbestos effectively and help keep your staff and contractors safe.
The first step to managing asbestos risks within your properties is to identify and assess the risks of any Asbestos Containing Materials (ACMs) present.
To determine the ACMs and their risks, you will need to hire a suitably trained and competent person (usually an asbestos surveyor) to carry out an asbestos survey.
The surveyor will often take samples of suspected ACMs and send these off to a laboratory for analysis. Once analysed, the results form part of the report and inform the duty holder of any asbestos identified and its severity.
Are you looking for a better way to manage your asbestos risks?
Perhaps our Compliance Portal is the solution you need!
Get in touch to join our waiting list.
Hi, we're The King Brothers.
Our software helps you create high-quality asbestos survey reports in minutes.
Do you want to see how?
.png)