The University has been issued with an Improvement Notice (currently appealed and suspended) by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) with regards to our safety management system in the University including the retention of particular types of staff/student records under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH). These regulations require the University to be able to demonstrate compliance with COSHH health records requirements in order to protect staff/student health. The University does comply with these regulations, but this is difficult to effectively demonstrate as the data is stored in a variety of different sources at central and local School level and in different formats. This means that collating a full COSHH health record for an individual requires manual extraction of data from systems such as the Occupational Health Unit's OPAS record management system, corporate Health and Safety Department's Face-fit Testing database, and various other data sources such as School records.
Access to certain labs & animal facilities requires health surveillance to be conducted prior to admittance. Lab Managers are currently unable to easily check these records and so are of risk of allowing admittance to people who may not have received the required health checks, or had suitable assessment and training for respiratory protective equipment and who may therefore be at increased risk of experiencing health issues in the future.
This proposal is to develop a mechanism to collate the data from the various University sources to provide a COSHH compliant health record for affected personnel suitable for multi user access within the University and which would satisfy the enforcement agency. Also to provide authorised personnel (e.g. Lab Managers) with a restricted view of this data so that they can ensure only approved people access their facilities.
There would be a continuing risk that staff/students may be inadvertently exposed to situations hazardous to their health, which could be detrimental to the individual and research group & could lead to prosecution of the University.
Once the appeal of the notices is heard by the Employment Tribunal, the Improvement Notice may come back into effect with a, currently, unknown compliance date which could lead to prosecution of the University if insufficient time is available to introduce a more effective and comprehensive system such as the type of electronic system outlined above.
Occupational Health Unit
School health & safety personnel
Central Bioresearch Services (CBS)
Increased protection of staff & students encountering hazardous substances, particularly laboratory animal allergens.
Improved compliance with COSHH Regulations.
Reduction of Enforcement action from the HSE such as Improvement Notices, reduces risk of prosecution.
There is likely to be a BI/MI element to this development
Meet external legislative requirement - An Improvement Notice has already been issues by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE)
Goals – Excellence in Research
Themes – Social responsibility