Socket covers – A safety feature or a safety hazard?
The British 13 Amp plug and socket is considered the safest in the world. It is one of the results of UK government planning in the 1940s to improve building standards. The committee entrusted with improving electrical installations included just one woman, but that woman had an enormous impact! Her name was Caroline Haslett, she was an electrical engineer, a pioneer in the use of electricity to benefit women by liberating them from household drudgery, and an expert on safety in the home. She believed that a new, more convenient and safer plug and socket was needed. As a result, the first requirement in the committee’s recommendations was that it should protect young children from being able to touch live parts by means of shutters, or the inherent design of the socket. The resulting design, still in use today, actually does both. A baby’s finger is not small enough to go into the socket holes far enough to reach the live parts, but to make sure, there are insulated shutters on the inside of the holes which prevent anything but a plug being inserted. These shutters close automatically as soon as the plug is pulled out.
Originally introduced in 1947, British Standard 1363 has been protecting our children ever since, UK law requires all sockets sold to conform to the BS 1363 standard, ensuring your child’s safety. Sockets are made to accept plugs which meet very exact requirements (and the law requires that plugs are certified as meeting the requirements). Nothing failing to meet those requirements should ever be put in a socket.
The Department of Health have finally woken up to the fact that so called “socket safety covers” are actually dangerous as they are not manufactured to any standard and can easily disable the in-built safety features of the BS 1363 socket.
Their recommendation is that all such “socket safety covers” should be removed immediately from every socket in all public spaces in the UK and disposed of in a responsible way.
The report from the Departments of Health for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales can be found here.
For more information please visit the Fatally Flawed website.
