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NPORS Confined Spaces, Medium Risk Training (N702)
Medium risk is where most industrial confined space work sits: a space with a specified risk that is being controlled, an escape set on the entrant, a tripod over the opening and somebody outside whose only job is that entry. Training on your own equipment, with the length confirmed when we quote.
Why candidates choose Acadame
What makes our N702 Confined Spaces Medium Risk different
About this course
This is the medium risk tier of the NPORS N702 Confined Spaces category, which covers the majority of industrial confined space work. A medium risk space is one where a specified risk exists or could develop, where the controls in place mean the entry can be made but escape breathing apparatus may be required, and where one or more people outside are dedicated to managing the entry. Entry is typically vertical, using a ladder or a man riding winch through a tripod or davit, or horizontal with a retrieval line, and rescue arrangements have to be in place and workable before anyone goes in.
The Confined Spaces Regulations 1997 sit behind all of it. A confined space is a substantially enclosed place where a specified risk is reasonably foreseeable: fire or explosion, loss of consciousness from increased body temperature, loss of consciousness or asphyxiation from gas, fume, vapour or lack of oxygen, drowning from a rising level of liquid, or asphyxiation from a free flowing solid or from entrapment. The hierarchy is avoid entry, then a safe system of work, then adequate emergency arrangements in place before the work starts. At this tier the emergency arrangements are the part that most often looks convincing on paper and falls apart in practice.
The training therefore spends its time on the things that decide the outcome. Gas detection done properly, including instrument checks, bump testing, pre entry testing at depth and continuous monitoring while the work goes on. Isolation, purging and forced ventilation. Escape breathing apparatus: what it is for, what it is not for, checking it and donning it quickly with limited visibility. Harnesses, lines, tripods, davits and winches set up correctly, including anchorage and geometry. The person managing the entry from outside, the entry log and communication. And the rescue arrangements, tested rather than described.
- The Confined Spaces Regulations 1997, the definition of a confined space and the specified risks the Regulations are concerned with
- The duty to avoid entry where the work can reasonably be done another way, and safe systems of work where it cannot: risk assessment, method statement, permit to work, isolation, purging and forced ventilation, and confirming they have worked
- Emergency arrangements and rescue: who carries it out, with what, how quickly, and the reason a plan that has not been rehearsed is not a plan
- Atmospheric hazards and gas detection: oxygen deficiency and enrichment, flammable and toxic gas, instrument checks, bump testing, pre entry testing at depth, continuous monitoring and alarm response
- Escape breathing apparatus: purpose and limits, pre use checks, donning under pressure and the escape itself
- Harnesses, lines, tripods, davits and winches and their limitations, and the role of the person managing the entry from outside, the entry log and communication
How completing this course helps you
- The NPORS N702 Confined Spaces category recorded at the medium risk tier, registered with NPORS and recognised nationally
- An NPORS card recording the category and tier, carrying the CSCS logo while the holder's CITB Health, Safety and Environment test is in date
- Entrants who can don an escape set quickly and attendants who stay at the entry and keep the log
- Rescue arrangements that have been set up and used rather than written down and filed
Who should attend?
Water and wastewater operations, utilities and drainage contractors, process and manufacturing plant, food and drink production, energy and waste sites, telecoms and rail infrastructure, tank and vessel cleaning contractors, and civils crews entering deep chambers and shafts. It is the tier most industrial and utilities entries fall into, and the one most often under trained for.
Entry requirements. You should be at least eighteen, physically and medically fit for confined space work including wearing a harness and an escape set and climbing unaided, and able to follow spoken and written English well enough for the theory test, with support available on request. Medical fitness matters more at this tier and your organisation should have arrangements for assessing it. Your risk assessments should classify the spaces your people enter, because that decides the tier. For the version of the card that carries the CSCS logo, the holder needs a CITB Health, Safety and Environment test pass at the level their role requires, which we book for you.
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Course content
What you will cover
Classroom on the Regulations, the atmosphere, the controls and the emergency arrangements, then practical gas testing, escape set drills, tripod and winch entries and the management of the entry from outside.
The Regulations, the controls and the emergency arrangements
- The Confined Spaces Regulations 1997, the definition of a confined space and the specified risks the Regulations are concerned with
- The duty to avoid entry where the work can reasonably be done another way, and what that means in practice
- Safe systems of work: risk assessment, method statement, permit to work, isolation, purging and ventilation
- Emergency arrangements that must be in place before entry, and why calling the fire service is not by itself a rescue plan
- Atmospheric hazards: oxygen deficiency and enrichment, flammable gas, toxic gas, and how they accumulate and stratify
- Gas detection: instrument checks, bump testing, pre entry testing, continuous monitoring and alarm response
- What places a space in the medium risk tier and what would take it into high risk
- Escape breathing apparatus, retrieval systems and the rescue arrangements required before entry
Entry, escape and retrieval
- Checking and bump testing gas detection equipment and testing at depth before entry
- Confirming isolation, purging and ventilation have achieved what the plan assumed
- Pre use checks and correct wearing of a harness and an escape breathing apparatus set
- Donning the escape set quickly and making a controlled escape
- Setting up a tripod or davit and winch, checking anchorage and geometry, and making a vertical entry
- Managing the entry from outside: the log, communication, monitoring and raising the alarm
- Carrying out a retrieval and evacuating the space in response to an alarm
Method of assessment
How the N702 confined spaces, medium risk test works
NPORS assess the category by theory test and practical test at the tier being trained. The practical uses your own detection, escape and retrieval equipment.
1. Enquiry and group
Tell us how many people, where, what spaces they enter, how those spaces are classified and what entry and rescue equipment you hold. The length and group size are confirmed when we quote.
2. Pre course check
We check that the medium risk tier matches your work, that medical fitness has been considered, that your escape and retrieval equipment is serviceable and in date, agree the card you need, book the CITB test where it applies, and take the details NPORS need.
3. Training
The Regulations and hierarchy, atmospheric hazards and detection, isolation and ventilation, escape apparatus and retrieval, then practical entries and drills.
4. Theory test
The NPORS theory test covering the Regulations, specified risks, safe systems of work, emergency arrangements, atmospheric monitoring, escape apparatus and retrieval.
5. Practical test
You test the atmosphere, check and don the escape set, set up and use tripod and winch access, make an entry, manage an entry from outside and carry out a retrieval, against the NPORS criteria.
6. Registration and card
We register the pass with NPORS and apply for your card, recorded at the medium risk tier, with the CSCS logo where the holder's CITB test is in date.
After the course
Rescue is the part that gets skipped
Every confined space entry at this tier is supposed to have emergency arrangements in place before the work starts. In practice, a great many have a tripod, a winch and an unspoken assumption that someone will manage. Ask the awkward questions after the course: who exactly performs the rescue, with what equipment, from where, how long would it take, and has that person ever done it with a weight on the line rather than in a discussion. A casualty in a confined space does not have long, and the entrants themselves cannot be the rescue plan.
The other thing worth doing is checking that equipment is being used as well as owned. Escape sets that live in a box, tripods set up with the wrong anchorage, harnesses with no in date inspection record and detectors that have never been bump tested are all common. Training gets people competent; a simple equipment routine keeps the kit capable of doing its job.
- The low risk tier for crews whose spaces are genuinely well ventilated with simple access
- The high risk tier where hazards cannot be eliminated and working breathing apparatus is required
- N038 High Pressure Water Jetting for drainage crews who jet as well as enter
- CITB Health, Safety and Environment test booked with us where the CSCS logo version of the card is needed
Build your course
Who is coming, and how many
We do not run these to a timetable. The course is built around your people: how experienced they are and how many of them there are, which is what sets the length and the cost. Pick the mix and we will come back with a date and a price.
The course builder needs JavaScript. Without it, tell us how many people and what experience they have and we will price it up.
N702 Confined Spaces Medium Risk FAQs
A space where a specified risk exists or could develop and is being controlled, where escape breathing apparatus may be required, and where one or more people outside are dedicated to managing the entry. Entry is usually vertical through a tripod or davit and winch, or horizontal with a retrieval line. It covers the majority of industrial and utilities confined space work.
We confirm it when we quote. The NPORS test sheet we work from has no row for this category, and published durations for the medium tier vary from a couple of days to considerably more between providers, so we ask about your spaces, your equipment and your crew's experience and set the length from that rather than print a figure we cannot support.
An escape set is worn or carried so the entrant can get out of a space whose atmosphere has become dangerous. It is not designed for working in a dangerous atmosphere and it provides only a short duration. Working breathing apparatus, worn throughout the entry because the atmosphere cannot be made safe, belongs to the high risk tier and needs that training.
Yes, and it is one of the most commonly skipped parts of a confined space operation. The person managing the entry keeps the log, maintains communication, monitors conditions, controls who goes in and raises the alarm without entering. That is a trained role, not a job for whoever is standing nearest the van.
At this tier the emergency arrangements have to be adequate and workable, which usually means a retrieval system that the attendant can operate and a plan that has been rehearsed. If the honest answer is that a rescue would require people to enter wearing breathing apparatus, you are describing a high risk entry and it needs that tier of training and provision.
Yes, and we would rather. Escape sets, harnesses, tripods, winches and detectors all differ, and people should practise on the kit they will pick up in an emergency. We will also flag anything that is out of inspection or unsuitable before the course rather than during it.
It follows your risk assessments. Low risk where ventilation is adequate, access is simple and no escape apparatus is required. Medium where a specified risk is controlled and escape apparatus and retrieval are involved. High where the hazards cannot be eliminated. Describe the work or send us the assessments and we will tell you, including where the answer is more than one tier for different crews.
Confined space competence degrades quickly without practice, and most organisations refresh it on a regular cycle set by their own arrangements and their clients' requirements. We will fit in with the cycle you use rather than quote an interval we cannot support.
NPORS courses are priced per course, not per person. What you are paying for is the instructor, the registered tester and the machine time, so the figure turns on four things: the category, which route your operators need (novice, experienced, conversion or refresher), how many people are coming, and whether we run it on your site or at one of ours. It is also why a squad works out considerably cheaper per head than sending operators out one at a time. Use the course builder on this page: tell it who is coming and it works out how many days the course takes and how many times it has to run, which is what the price is built from. Then ask us and you will get a figure for that exact group rather than a list price with conditions attached.
We run NPORS courses across the UK rather than out of one fixed centre, and for most categories the better answer is that we come to you: your operators are assessed on the machine they will be using anyway, nobody loses a day travelling, and for a group it costs less. If you would rather come to us, we have centres at Trent House in Stoke, Pride Park in Derby, Europa House in Manchester and Kingsway House in Liverpool. Tell us where the work is and we will say honestly which way round makes more sense.
There is no fixed timetable to wait for. NPORS courses here are run to order, which means the dates are built around your programme rather than ours, and a single operator or a full squad can normally be booked in within a couple of weeks. If you have a card about to expire or a start date to hit, say so when you enquire and we will work to it.
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