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Confined space work RAMS Builder
Confined space risk assessment and method statement
Prepare RAMS for entering chambers, pits, tanks, vessels, ducts and voids. Add the space and the entry permit arrangements, edit the suggestions and review the PDF draft.
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Prepare the Confined space work RAMS
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What will you be doing?
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Pick everything this RAMS covers. The questions that follow are chosen from what you tick here.
What a Confined space work RAMS covers
Entry into spaces where bad air, flooding, fire or getting trapped is a real risk: underground chambers and pits, tanks and vessels, and ducts and voids in a building.
- Chamber and pit entry
- Tank and vessel entry
- Duct and void entry
Suggested steps and hazards for Confined space work
What it offers for chamber and pit entry before you have answered anything.
See if you can do it without going in
- Try a camera on a pole, a rod, a jetting hose, a vac unit or working through an open hatch first.
- Only go in when the job genuinely cannot be done from outside.
Hazard
A person is exposed to bad air, drowning, fire or being trapped only because they went inside
Who might be harmed and how
Everyone who enters and anyone who would go in after them
Controls in place
- Agree with the client what can be done from outside before the day.
- Write down why entry is needed.
The law says avoid entering a confined space if the work can be done another way.
HSE: Confined spaces Get the entry permit signed before anyone in
- The permit names who authorised it, what work is allowed, the isolations, the gas tests and the rescue plan.
- It names who is in charge at the hole and who is allowed inside.
- It has a time on it. When the time runs out, everyone comes out and it is signed off.
Hazard
People enter before the isolations, testing or rescue are actually in place
Who might be harmed and how
The entrants, the top man and the supervisor
Controls in place
- One person is in charge at the hole and stays there while anyone is inside.
- Nobody enters without being named on the permit.
The permit is the formal check that every part of the safe system is really ready.
Check the people are right for the job
- Entrants and the top man need confined space training for this type of space and this kit.
- Check nobody is going in who is unwell, claustrophobic or not fit to wear breathing kit.
- Check the build of the person against the size of the opening and what they will wear.
Hazard
Someone panics, collapses or cannot get back out through the opening
Who might be harmed and how
The entrants and whoever would have to get them out
Controls in place
- Keep the training cards on site with the permit.
- Nobody goes in alone with nobody outside.
Training and fitness are what the person relies on when the air or the light goes.
HSE: Introduction to working in confined spaces
What the builder asks about Confined space work
Your answers decide which steps, hazards and controls it suggests.
The job
- What are you going in to do?
- What has been in the space?
Where
- What pipes or cables run into the space or right next to the way in?
How it’s done
- What will you stand on to reach the work?
- What gas detector are you using?
- How will you get fresh air in?
- How do you get someone out if they go down?
- Who signs the entry permit?
What your Confined space work RAMS includes
Method statement
The sequence of the work, step by step. The suggestions are a starting point; you write the method for the job as it will be done.
Risk assessment
Each hazard, who could be harmed, the controls in place and any further action. There is no risk score: you judge each row against the real site, and adding a hazard does not put its controls in place.
PDF draft for review
The document as you left it, for someone competent to check. A download is not approval and not permission to start work.