Confined Space Contractors & Rescue Services
What is a Confined Space?
A confined space can be defined as an enclosed space that has foreseeable specified risks for those tasked with entry. Knowing what is classed as a confined space can help you identify whether additional access support may be required.
“Any place including any chamber, vat, silo, pit, trench, pipe, well, or other similar space in which, by virtue of its enclosed nature, there arises a reasonably foreseeable ‘specified risk’”
(Source: Confined Spaces Regulations 1997 – Approved Code of Practice ACOP101)
Our Services
Confined Space Access at CAN
CAN employs City & Guilds certified confined space operatives, estimators and project management teams with extensive experience of undertaking complex access, rigging and construction work in confined spaces.
Whether accessing tunnels, chimneys, drainage systems, sewers or shafts, our confined space contracting services provide access for work across a wide range of confined spaces and classifications.
Our teams can plan and deliver access arrangements around the specific characteristics of the space, the work required and the conditions encountered.
Working in Confined Spaces
Confined space projects can present challenges around access, movement, equipment and working conditions.
CAN’s experienced teams can provide specialist access and support for inspection, maintenance, repair, construction and installation works within restricted environments.
Our approach considers how operatives, tools and materials can be safely moved into and around the work area, including the use of specialist rigging and access systems where required. Working alongside the wider project team, we can develop a practical access methodology suited to the space and the work being undertaken.
Third Party Access Supervision
Supervision and management of confined space access for third parties, including:
- The development of suitable safe systems of work in the form of a detailed risk assessment and method statement, developed by an Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) qualified project manager.
- Specification and supply of all safety-critical equipment, including escape sets, air monitors, harnesses and winches.
- Mobilisation of confined space and confined space rescue teams.
Confined Space High Risk Working
- When specified risks cannot be controlled or when work is a substantial distance from the point of entry, our High-Risk-trained teams are mobilised.
- CAN High-Risk trained operatives are proficient in the use of full breathing apparatus, including force-fed air systems, if poor air or noxious gas is present, or will be created by entry, or if the work site is located so far from the entry point that it would not be possible to exit using ‘standard’ equipment.
- We ensure the most difficult and high-risk confined space scenarios can be accessed and controlled under a safe system of work.
Confined Space Rescue Cover
Whenever confined space work is undertaken a rescue team is required, subject to risk assessment, in accordance with the Confined Space Regulations 1997.
“No person at work shall enter or carry out work in a confined space unless there have been prepared in respect of that confined space suitable and sufficient arrangements for the rescue of a persons in the event of an emergency, whether or not arising out of a specified risk”.
In the event an operative is injured in a confined space a suitable means of prompt extraction, rescue and recovery is required. CAN regularly deploys high-risk confined space rescue teams that provide rescue cover, enabling quick, safe casualty retrieval.
Confined Space Emergency Stand-by
Emergency stand-by arrangements for confined space working and rescue cover are requested when the requirement to access a confined space cannot be pre-planned but is anticipated.
CAN ensures that suitable, documented safe systems of work, equipment, and personnel are available to respond in the event of an emergency to give you confidence in the safety of your workforce.
Case Studies
