Bouncy Castle & Inflatables Health &Safety

Here at Party Rocks Bounce safety is our priority, that’s why all our equipment is regularly check to ensure its safe to use and annually inspected under HSE and PUWER regulations.

Inflatables have to comply with British and European Standard BSEN14960:2013

BSEN 14960:2013 defines what is classed as ‘Play Equipment’ that is deemed suitable for commercial hire and covers the design and manufacture of inflatable play equipment and also the safe setup of inflatables.

The standard is overseen by the HSE. The HSE require that a regular inspection of inflatable play equipment and that it is carried out by a “competent person.” They recognize ‘The Register of Play Inspectors International’ or ‘RPII’ as an inspection body that can examine, accredit and certificate individual play area inspectors who are then qualified to test play equipment against the requirements of BSEN14960:2013. The RPII were actually co-founded by amongst others the ‘Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). They also work closely with the British Standards Institute (BSI) and have an active representative on the RPII Board.

All inflatables should carry a valid RPII or PIPA certificate to show they’ve been annually tested by a “competent person”. It is not a requirement of law to use an RPII Inspector to do this but it is strongly inferred and preferred – we use an independent RPII and PIPA approved Inspector.

What is PIPA

PIPA are a national database, which can be accessed by anyone. Information found on the database has been entered by RPII approved inspectors. The PIPA database and tagging scheme provide a system that allows inflatables to be tagged with a unique identifying number (tag) that allows anyone to check its current inspection status, which allows the public to check that the inflatables they are hiring are tested regularly and safe to use.

The role of PIPA in the industry is currently imperative because they provide this database and tagging system for inflatable play equipment. In order to place a blue PIPA tag on an inflatable bouncy castle or slide you must be a qualified RPII Inspector who has also then registered with the PIPA scheme. PIPA are not an inspection body and do not train their own inspectors they just provide the tagging system and the online database.

There is no legal requirement that bouncy castles or slides must be registered with the PIPA scheme and RPII Inspectors can issue their own certificates of EN14960:2013 compliance in place of the PIPA tagging upon the request of the hire company. To clarify; so long as it’s tested to an acceptable standard as deemed by a qualified RPII Inspector, it doesn’t matter how it’s logged only that it can be proven its been inspected by what HSE deemed a competent person, and the RPii Inspectors being recognised as this.

The PIPA database limits itself and does not recognize anything that is not listed in the standard. So if it’s not a bouncy castle or a slide it can’t be tagged and registered under the PIPA scheme. So RPII Inspectors use elements of the standard to be able to Issue a RPii Certificate of inspection on our other commercial hire play equipment such as Soft Play, Ball Pools, Sumo Suits, Gladiators and such or anything that’s not a bouncy castle or a slide. These items also all require a regular inspection and this is proven in our independent RPii Inspectors Certificates.