FEATURE
CRIME CLEANERS
Unexpected and shocking by their very nature, crime and trauma scenes should only be dealt with by professional crime scene cleaners. Here, Martin Bull, Director of CleanSafe Services, provides an overview.
Who is responsible? Some people are under the impression that police or emergency services clean up crime scenes, but this is simply not the case. The property owner or premises manager is responsible for making sure it is professionally cleaned – even when the crime or trauma involves blood or other bodily fluids.
FMs will be aware of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, and their legal duty to protect the health and safety of employees and anyone else that may be on the premises.
Health and safety plans should include procedures for reporting an incident involving a biohazard. The plan should evaluate the risk of infection from exposure to body fluids and detail the procedure for decontaminating the area and removing the hazardous waste.
Are you in a high-risk industry? Prisons and hospitals are the obvious places where a body fluid biohazard would occur. But any location where people experience strong emotions, such as sports stadiums or betting shops and, of course, pubs and clubs where alcohol is involved are considered high-risk areas for violent crime and trauma, increasing the likelihood of biohazard contamination.
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The reality is that violent crimes, as well as accidents, that result in a hazardous body fluid spill can happen anywhere. A significant proportion of violent assaults take place every year in and around the victim’s workplace. Many organisations, and their FM partners, have had to build premises clean-up contingencies into their crisis planning following recent terrorist attacks.
It is important to complete a risk assessment to establish how likely your premises are to require crime or trauma scene cleaning. It is even more important to act on that information. That includes sourcing a reputable emergency cleaning company and understanding the range of services it offers before you need help.
Biohazard decontamination Crime scene or trauma cleaning may be needed in a range of circumstances, from the extreme, such as a terrorist attack, to the sadly commonplace and mundane, such as a drunken fight in a bar.
In most significant cases, an FM partner may be working with a client’s crisis management team, or certainly a director, and often a loss adjustor. A key element of any crisis response is to follow due diligence principles by getting the right people to do the right jobs.
That applies to crime scene and trauma cleaning. A business will want complete assurance that the matter is
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