Health and Safety Action Required

The Health and Safety Team would like to highlight to all schools that your kitchen food mixers must be fitted with the appropriate guarding to prevent access to any dangerous part of machinery. This is a legal requirement under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER).

The Health and Safety Team have recently undertaken an investigation in a Kent school kitchen where it had been identified by an Environmental Health Inspector that there was no guarding to a food mixer. The Environmental Health Inspector reported the health and safety breach to the local Health and Safety Executive enforcing officer who contacted the Health and Safety Team at Kent County Council to ensure that we were addressing the issue.

Action Required

Any kitchens which are still using food mixers which do not comply to the PUWER regulations must replace their existing mixer with a suitable food mixer which does have complete guarding to enclose the dangerous parts of the machine. It should be noted that it is not possible to fit a guard retrospectively to the old style mixers.

Contact Details

Health and Safety Team
Telephone: 03000 418456
Email: healthandsafety@kent.gov.uk