The function: monitoring effectiveness (Royal Decree 39/1997, article 22 bis.4)
The preventive resource monitors compliance with the preventive activities planned for that situation and checks that they are effective. It does not replace the prevention service and does not assess risks on its own: it monitors what has already been planned.
If it sees something being breached (article 22 bis.5)
- It gives workers the necessary instructions so that they comply with the measures.
- It reports to the employer, who must correct the shortcomings if they have not been remedied.
If the measures do not exist or are not enough (article 22 bis.6)
When it finds that preventive measures are missing, insufficient or unsuitable, it reports to the employer, who adopts the measures and amends the planning of preventive activity and, if necessary, the risk assessment.
What does not change
- The employer may use the presence of preventive resources in other cases, if compatible with their functions (paragraph 7).
- In diving, ionising radiation, compressed-air caissons, explosive atmospheres, explosives and electrical risk, their specific rules prevail (paragraph 8).
- When several companies work together, the obligation falls on the one carrying out the hazardous activity (paragraph 9).
- Having a preventive resource does not relieve the employer of any other protection duty (paragraph 10).
By what standard it monitors
By the principles of preventive action (Law 31/1995, article 15.1): avoid risks, combat them at source, replace what is dangerous with what involves little or no danger, adapt the work to the person and put collective protection before individual protection.
Source: Real Decreto 39/1997, Reglamento de los Servicios de Prevención (Prevention Services Regulations, consolidated text, in Spanish), article 22 bis.4 to 10 · Ley 31/1995, de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales (Spanish Occupational Risk Prevention Act, consolidated text, in Spanish), article 15.1