Council sets up sun bed safety scheme

Public Protection Officers from Central Bedfordshire Council have introduced a new sunbed safety scheme so residents can be confident that tanning equipment is safe and salons are following the law.

Sunbed safety certificates have been issued to 19 out of the 28 tanning salons across the area as a result of the scheme, as they were found to be emitting excessive UV levels.

The visits included testing of sunbed equipment to make sure that it was within safe UV radiance levels and they also checked salons’ procedures for preventing use of sunbeds by under 18 year olds following new legislation introduced in April 2011.

Written guidance was sent to all salons, followed by a series of inspections to check the advice had been taken.

Test failures were reported to premises which were given a deadline for bringing their equipment up to standard and follow-up visits to these premises two months later showed that the problem equipment had either been repaired or replaced.

The failing of initial visits in the area was 39%, but of those revisited all but one passed on a second visit. and the remaining one passed third time round.

Central Bedfordshire was one of the first councils in the Eastern region to back up the premise inspections with separate underage test purchase visits to make sure that salons were complying with the law on customer ages.

Cllr Brian Spurr, Executive Member for Sustainable Communities (Services) at Central Bedfordshire Council said: “The dramatic increase in skin cancer cases in the United Kingdom over the past 30 years is a big concern and so it is extremely important that the public can be confident the equipment that they are using in commercial sunbed premises is fundamentally safe.

“It is vital that young people are not exposed to unnecessary risks to their skin health at an early age – so the underage purchases to test that salons were complying with age legislation were particularly important.

“We’ve focused on helping businesses to operate legally rather than rushing to penalise those that didn’t comply first time.

“Salons have welcomed the safety certificates which mean that they can show their customers that they are providing a safe tanning environment.

“At the same time the certificates will help to raise people’s awareness of health and safety issues in this area.”

The council will do regular follow up visits to premises to make sure they continue to work within the law.