The UK’s leading fuel safety charity, the Gas Safety Trust is supporting the All Party Parliamentary Gas Safety Group (APPGSG) by pledging to work towards the recommendations outlined in the Group’s recent report.
The Trust has committed to working towards four of the recommendations, although it will continue to support the APPGSG’s work to achieve all 17 recommendations.
The Trust has already launched its first campaign targeting the camping industry to raise awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide (CO) when camping, in the light of rising numbers of fatalities and casualties reported in the last two years amongst campers and caravanners due to the effects of CO poisoning.
According to the APPGSG report, retailers selling camping and barbecue equipment, registered campsites and caravan sites should promote the dangers of carbon monoxide and the use of carbon monoxide alarms.
The Trust commissioned a survey of people who regularly go camping in the UK and the results revealed some alarming perceptions among UK adults. The Trust is lobbying MPs and the camping industry to raise awareness of this issue, at this critical time of the year. In the holiday season, it is estimated that 3.7m Brits will go camping this summer.
Gas Safety Trust Board Chair, Chris Bielby said: “The launch of the research findings by the Gas Safety Trust represents a positive start to a coordinated approach, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. It has helped APPGSG parliamentary activity to appeal for the support of Government and the Health and Safety Executive to highlight the dangers and do more to prevent deaths, and seek funding for future projects’.
“The results of future studies and research that attempt to evaluate the frequency of carbon monoxide poisoning across different population groups can only have a positive effect on joint activity with APPGSG and other industry stakeholders to raise the profile of the dangers and accelerate the introduction of measures that help reduce the number of accidents and fatalities”.
The APPGSG report recommends joint activity aimed at Government to ensure that general practitioners’ surgeries and accident and emergency departments are trained to recognise the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning and monitor for CO using the appropriate equipment whenever carbon monoxide exposure is suspected.
More information: www.gas-safety-trust.org./uk