Socket 1.5m from bath but outside bathroom

I get what you are saying. 

To keep the population in check we must electrocute a small percentage of the population. 

Seriously though, isn't even one electrocution per year in the bathroom enough for the IEE to take some sort of precautionary action within the regs. When the report of a politician's daughter was electrocuted in the kitchen when knocking a nail into the kitchen wall to hang up a dish rack (or something) got the IEE to start changing regs to include RCD protection for cables in wall less then 50mm etc, would this not be on the same par?

Almost. I think we can afford to allow a few more people to be electrocuted, if we can divert the effort that might have saved them to some other measure that would have saved more lives for the same cost or effort. For example, would we have been better not introducing part P, and spending the same money on inspecting hot water cylinders ? - the no. of babies and old folk killed by scalding accidents in the last 15 years suggests we might well have been. Of course it is not possible to visit the parallel universe to check, and in the mean time we have changed the rules on immersion heater thermostats, though there are plenty of old ones in service.

Please do not believe that the famous kitchen rack through a cable example, the death of death of MP Jenny Tonge's daughter, Mary Wherry in 2004, drove either the introduction of part P or the sockets on RCD rules - these things take far longer to implement, and  are rarely influenced by one event, and the rule changes were already in the pipeline. However it does not stop the Daily Mail, and some of the trade press, who really should know better, from implying a link, and dramatic examples do make headlines. In that example arguably the fact that other family members had noticed tingles off it and did nothing also suggests that a public information campaign with  some technical education on how to recognise dangerous situations and what to do about it would have been a good idea.

Of course any one death is a tragedy for the family and friends of the departed but it makes a very bad basis for changes of rules, - consider the 3 to 4000 fatalities on the road each year, should we rush out and ban cars perhaps ?

We need to be realistic about what we can, and cannot, be responsible for.

The socket location meets the current regs, - is it RCD protected ? if so poses a very  small extra risk, no action needed, but if you wish record  in the 'notes' part of your  report that despite its location it is not meant to be used to supply equipment in the bathroom. If  it is not on a circuit that is RCD protected then that is non-compliant to current regs and something needs to be done.

I get what you are saying. 

To keep the population in check we must electrocute a small percentage of the population. 

Seriously though, isn't even one electrocution per year in the bathroom enough for the IEE to take some sort of precautionary action within the regs. When the report of a politician's daughter was electrocuted in the kitchen when knocking a nail into the kitchen wall to hang up a dish rack (or something) got the IEE to start changing regs to include RCD protection for cables in wall less then 50mm etc, would this not be on the same par?

Almost. I think we can afford to allow a few more people to be electrocuted, if we can divert the effort that might have saved them to some other measure that would have saved more lives for the same cost or effort. For example, would we have been better not introducing part P, and spending the same money on inspecting hot water cylinders ? - the no. of babies and old folk killed by scalding accidents in the last 15 years suggests we might well have been. Of course it is not possible to visit the parallel universe to check, and in the mean time we have changed the rules on immersion heater thermostats, though there are plenty of old ones in service.

Please do not believe that the famous kitchen rack through a cable example, the death of death of MP Jenny Tonge's daughter, Mary Wherry in 2004, drove either the introduction of part P or the sockets on RCD rules - these things take far longer to implement, and  are rarely influenced by one event, and the rule changes were already in the pipeline. However it does not stop the Daily Mail, and some of the trade press, who really should know better, from implying a link, and dramatic examples do make headlines. In that example arguably the fact that other family members had noticed tingles off it and did nothing also suggests that a public information campaign with  some technical education on how to recognise dangerous situations and what to do about it would have been a good idea.

Of course any one death is a tragedy for the family and friends of the departed but it makes a very bad basis for changes of rules, - consider the 3 to 4000 fatalities on the road each year, should we rush out and ban cars perhaps ?

We need to be realistic about what we can, and cannot, be responsible for.

The socket location meets the current regs, - is it RCD protected ? if so poses a very  small extra risk, no action needed, but if you wish record  in the 'notes' part of your  report that despite its location it is not meant to be used to supply equipment in the bathroom. If  it is not on a circuit that is RCD protected then that is non-compliant to current regs and something needs to be done.