Health & Safety Guide 47 (HSG47) Explained

What is Health and Safety Guide 47?

The Health & Safety Regulations are there to offer protection, and are especially critical if, for example, you work in the utilities industries. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) issues this guidance, and while following it is not technically a legal requirement, it’s certainly highly advisable.

Each regulation covers a specific area in detail. Health and Safety Guide No. 47 (HSG47), for instance, last updated in 2014, looks at the possible risks of work close to underground services. At the same time, it advises on minimising immediate hazards to human health and safety, plus the indirect ones which damage to services may pose.

When would I need to know about HSG47?

If your work includes commissioning, managing, planning and completing work close to or on underground services, you need to know about this guidance, as you do if you own or run any of these services.

For the avoidance of doubt, the term ‘underground services’ means all below-ground cables, pipes, and other equipment associated with utilities such as water, gas, electricity and  telecoms, alongside other pipelines carrying a variety of petrochemical or other liquids. They’re so commonly found that it’s always best, unless it has been proven to the contrary, to assume their presence.

HSG47 applies to all work in areas where these below-ground utilities could be located and disturbed. HSG47 is also relevant to you if your role requires you to understand utility drawings and be able to identify types of services and how to locate underground services.

What do the regulations cover?

The 40-page guidance, entitled Avoiding danger from underground services, has four chapters, as follows:

• Works planning

Even with emergency jobs, you need first to do planning and risk assessment. Work must be planned to prevent the disturbance of underground services, and you’ll need to get service drawings from the relevant utility firms or similar organisations.

Before it can start, you’ll need to survey the site to locate and record underground services and structures.

• Risk identification and management

If underground services are damaged, it can lead to serious or even fatal injury, while also resulting in delays, significant extra costs and environmental harm.

• The location, identifying and marking of underground services

HSG47 covers the location of services in a particular area, and doing so competently with the right survey tools and detection devices, while interpreting plans correctly. (The status of detected services must be identified, marked and confirmed, and their location noted.)

• Excavating safely

HSG47 encompasses safe excavation methods, including:

• Site limitations
• Ground conditions
• The works’ scope and nature
• The position, type and status of any underground services

You’ll need to mark up any services identified, and give a proper plan indicating what services are where to those doing the work. You’ll also have to support these services adequately when backfilling excavations – and not use concrete for this.

The guidance also recommends buying a utility report, or using a searching system, because, since deregulation, it’s been hard to know which organisation owns which asset. It also includes recording where contractors move plant, and using locating devices when finding concealed services.

What we offer

At Pragmatic Consulting, we offer 3 courses related to HSG47. One focusing on HSG47 and avoiding the dangers of underground services, another focusing on locating utility services & HSG47 radio detection. Finally, we also offer a refresher for avoiding the dangers of underground services.

Pragmatic Consulting is a training and assessment provider specialising in the utilities and construction industries. 

Get in touch with us today to learn more. 

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