An assured, time-stamped muster the Competent Authority could see.

This upper-tier COMAH establishment holds dangerous substances well above Schedule 1 thresholds and had a written internal emergency plan under Regulation 7, tested at the three-year interval Regulation 8 requires. Its weakness was evidence: drills happened, but the debrief was verbal and a few notes, so the site could not objectively show how long a muster took, whether anyone was unaccounted for, or how the count compared with who was actually on site.

Rather than rewrite the plan, the site instrumented it. A survey mapped muster points, the gatehouse and the thresholds of the main hazard zones; Safety Detection Points were installed there; and staff, contractors and visitors were issued safety tags. Go-live was phased against the drill programme so the automated muster was proven alongside the existing process before it became the primary method.

At every activation the operator now sees a live SAFE, EVACUATING and MISSING rollup, with the last-detected location of anyone still inside a hazard zone so a search can be directed. A time-to-safe figure and a full drill report are produced automatically, giving exactly the Regulation 8 test evidence and after-incident record the Competent Authority looks for.

The proof came during a real intervention, when the site demonstrated a full, timed, accurate muster on demand instead of talking an inspector through a document. The emergency plan moved from adequate on paper to demonstrably effective in practice.