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Permit to Work eLearning
Online permit to work training: what a permit is for, who issues and accepts it, and why the handback is the step that gets skipped and kills people.
Who it is for
Who this permit to work course is for
A permit to work is a formal control for high-risk work: hot work, confined spaces, work on live systems, work at height in exposed positions. It fails when it becomes a form-filling ritual rather than a conversation.
- Maintenance and engineering teams
- Contractors working on client sites
- Site supervisors who issue or accept permits
- Facilities and estates staff
- Process, utilities and manufacturing operatives
- Anyone new to a permit-controlled environment
Course content
What the permit to work course covers
Five short lessons covering what a permit is for, roles, issuing and isolation, during the work, and handback and cancellation, then a 12-question assessment.
What a permit is for and when it is needed
A permit as a written control from risk assessment, and the high-risk work that needs one.
Roles
Issuer, acceptor and other roles in a permit system, and who is responsible for what.
Issuing and isolation
What the permit must specify, isolation and locking, and checking before work starts.
During the work
Staying within the permit, changes, shift handover, and when to stop.
Handback and cancellation
Making safe, removing locks, handing back, and cancelling: the step that gets skipped.
Outcomes
What you will be able to do afterwards
- Explain what a permit to work is for and when one is needed
- Describe the roles in a permit system
- Check that a permit specifies the hazards, isolations and precautions
- Work safely under a permit, including when the job changes
- Hand back and cancel a permit correctly
Your legal duty
The law behind permit to work training
No regulation is called the permit to work regulations. Permits are a control measure that comes out of risk assessment. They're required indirectly by the general duty to ensure health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable and by the requirement to assess risk.
Some specific regimes effectively require a permit-style control. Work in confined spaces, hot work in premises covered by fire safety law, and work on electrical systems all rely on the kind of formal control a permit provides.
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 - sections 2 and 3
- Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 - risk assessment
- Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 - where electrical work is involved
- No regulation names permits to work; they are a control that risk assessment produces
Practicalities
How the course works
Would you rather have a tutor?
Most permit failures involve contractors, which is a management problem as much as a procedural one.
For employers
Permit to Work training for a team
Permit systems fail at the interface between the site team and contractors, so both sides need the same understanding of what the paper means.
- One invoice instead of a card payment per person
- Licences allocated as people join, so induction is covered
- Completion and expiry reporting for your records
- Renewal reminders before certificates lapse
- Bespoke versions built around your own procedures
Permit to Work eLearning: common questions
No regulation is named after it. Permits are a control measure that risk assessment produces for high-risk work, and some regimes effectively rely on that kind of formal control.
Someone competent and authorised under your own permit system, with the knowledge to specify the precautions. The course covers the roles rather than naming job titles, because systems differ.
Stop. The permit covers a defined scope under defined conditions. The course is explicit that carrying on outside the permit is where serious incidents happen.
Because an unclosed permit means the area is assumed unsafe, or worse, assumed safe when isolation is still in place. Handback failures cause a disproportionate share of permit-related incidents.
About 30 to 45 minutes, with no time limit. Start it, pause it, and come back whenever suits. The certificate is issued as soon as you pass the end assessment.
Yes. It runs in a browser on any modern phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to install.
Yes. Open a business account and we invoice you for the licences, which you allocate as people need them, with completion reporting included.
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