District Health Board visits to commercial solaria finds compliance unchanged since 2017
November 7, 2018
In 2012 District Health Board public health staff initiated six-monthly visits to commercial solaria to ensure that solarium operators were familiar with best practice procedures to reduce the risks from exposure to ultra-violet (UV) radiation from sunbeds.
During visits carried out in the first half of 2018, public health staff were requested to use a standardised assessment form to check aspects of the solarium operation against recommendations in AS/NZS 2635:2008 Solaria for cosmetic purposes (the Standard). The eleven areas of operation examined mostly covered administrative and procedural aspects of the operation. The same areas were examined in the first half of the years 2013 to 2017, so the effectiveness of the visits in improving compliance with the recommendations in the Standard can be gauged by comparing results from year to year.
94 establishments are believed to have sunbeds, a decrease from 112 found in 2017. 84 were assessed using the standardised assessment form. Several operators reported that they would probably stop offering sunbed services soon. There was a further small improvement in compliance. 47 percent of establishments complied with all eleven areas of operation that were checked (38 percent in 2017), and 85 percent complied with one or more (83 percent in 2017). However, this was entirely driven by improvements in Auckland where the Health and Hygiene bylaw effectively mandates compliance with the areas of operation checked in these surveys. Overall compliance in the rest of the country was unchanged since 2017. In 2016, the Health Act 1956 was amended to ban the provision of commercial sunbed services to those under 18 years. Public health staff found evidence suggesting that four establishments might still allow under-18s to use a sunbed.