PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR & SENIOR MANAGER

1. PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR & SENIOR MANAGER HEALTH & SAFETY MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES

2. Why Health and Safety is Important (or why bother?) • Reputation • University of Nottingham aims for excellence in teaching and research • Quality in teaching and research is achieved through quality in all aspects of operations. • Bad publicity from unsafe, unhealthy or environmentally damaging events undermines this. • Moral imperative • To provide a safe and healthy working environment • Clear conscience

3. Why Health and Safety is Important (or why bother?) • Legal requirements • Law specifies standards • Penalties if not followed • Financial Reasons • Staff absences, • lost output/data • damaged equipment, • compensation payments and insurance premiums • Uninsured costs >>insured costs £1 £8-36

4. Legal Environment • Statutory Law • Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 • Duties towards employees, students and visitors • Ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, health, safety and welfare at work • Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 – • Duties on manager to ensure the above • Risk assessment !!!

5. Penalties • Prosecution – fines and imprisonment. • Prohibition Notice – stop work now • Improvement notices – put certain measure in place within a specified time

6. Civil Liability • Common Law Duty of Care owed to employees, students, & visitors • Failure can result in personal injury claims for negligence. • Approx £30,000 per annum for UoN

7. Organisation – lines of responsibility

8. Safety Responsibilities • Risk assessment • Training • Competency • Supervision • Monitoring • Detailed information can be found in the University’s Safety Management Standard: ‘Effective Safety Management’ http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/safety/esmcontents.htm

9. Risk assessment • For all hazardous activities/procedures • New procedures • New & existing equipment • Written SOPs [standard operating procedures] • Signed off by PI/Snr academic

10. Risk assessment continued • Procedural • Substances [ e.g.chemicals, biological material] • Equipment • Manual handling • Cylinders • Cryogenics • DSE • Lone working

11. Training & Competence • Identify training needs – initial & ongoing • Ensure training delivered by competent person • Assess competency • Record training and attainment of competency [ specific record form, PSRF or e lab book

12. Training delivery • University & External courses • Local induction • Job/task specific training [ techniques & equipment] • Refresher training • When procedure/equipment changes • High risk operations • Infrequent operations • Following accident/incident • Where competency is in question

13. Competency assessment • Assess practical skills & knowledge • Assessment by competent person • Methods of assessment • Written test [ e.g. induction questionnaire • Verbal discussion/questioning • Observation [ for practical tasks] • Self assessment [ where appropriate] • Continual assessment – ensure standards maintained

14. Supervision • Levels of supervision are determined by • the severity of the hazard and • the complexity of the control measures required to reduce risk and • the competence of the person. Source HSE – HSG 65

15. Monitoring & enforcement of standards • Active monitoring • Local housekeeping checks – recorded. • Regular meetings [ present findings of above] • Regular entry into the lab by PI – to check • School safety inspections & audits • Accident/incident/near misses • Reported • Investigated

16. Remember • You can delegate safety management duties • You cannot delegate legal responsibility • You remain accountable in law for the safety of students/staff whom you manage/supervise