Schools: Is Your Door Safety Up To Scratch?
At Cardea Solutions we care about the safety of our children – of all children – and it’s our mission to ensure they are as safe as possible, especially when at school.
That’s why we’re committed to carrying out free door safety risk assessments throughout the country. But we also know that schools care just as much as us about the safety of the children in their care and carry out risk assessments of their own on a regular basis.
Not all assessments include that most mundane of things though; doors.
With the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) saying that around 40,000 accidents involving children trapping fingers in doors occur every year and ELAS reporting that £4.65m in compensation was paid for injuries occurring in schools between 2009 and 2014, it’s a safety risk that has to be addressed.
But how do you carry out a door safety risk assessment? Here’s how our safety experts do it.
We assess every door on its condition, frequency of use and volume of traffic. We then apply one of four levels of risk to each door.
The Four Levels of Risk:
High Risk
Doors in EITHER in unacceptable condition OR acceptable condition in high traffic areas where children pass unsupervised on a regular basis and NOTfitted with finger guards.
Medium Risk
Doors in acceptable condition in low traffic areas through which children pass infrequently and NOT fitted with finger guards. May or may not be fitted with self-closing mechanism.
Low Risk
Doors in acceptable condition in low traffic areas through which children pass very infrequently and/or are supervised when doing so and NOT fitted with finger guards. May or may not be fitted with self-closing mechanism.
No Risk
Doors in good condition in any area that ARE fitted with finger guards.
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Once each door is assessed, our safety experts draw up a report with recommendations on what to do to reduce or eradicate risks to children. That could include replacing doors in poor condition and/or fitting finger guards such as Fingershield and Rearshield, especially in high traffic areas.
It’s worth bearing in mind the types of injuries that can occur at each risk level. It underlines just how seriously schools should take door safety and the dangers children could be facing throughout their education.
Injuries which can occur at:
High Risk
Major injuries in the form of severe crushing of fingers or amputation of fingers/fingertips.
Medium Risk
Minor injuries in the form of moderate finger crushing and severe bruising.
Low Risk
Unlikely to lead to injury through door safety devices/finger guards or low traffic/supervised doorways.
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As you can see, schools should aim to have low risk doors throughout the building to almost completely prevent any finger trapping injuries.
Of course, completely eradicating the risk through having all doors in good condition, fitted with finger guards on hinge and handle side and constant supervision on all doorways at all times would be the ideal – though hardy practical!
That said, all high traffic doorways should have an assessment of Low Risk and low traffic/supervised doorways an assessment of No Risk.
Would your school achieve this? Maybe now is the time to carry out a door risk assessment throughout your building.
