Health and Safety at ST Barts University

Rachel Shortland 11MHi Citizenship

Health and Safety in St. Bart’s and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry

In this piece of coursework, I am evaluating the Health and Safety system at my work experience placement at St. Barts University Whitechapel. I am hoping to establish whether the health and safety work legislation is effective in the laboratory situations.

In order to achieve my goal of assessing whether health and safety is effective at St. Barts University I shall:

Be working as an assistant lab-technician in the Neurology sector with hazardous chemicals and dangerous equipment; I will therefore need to be familiar with – and follow - health and safety procedures by wearing correct lab-gear, being aware of the fire and bomb-threat procedures etc. (see Appendix ‘A’, job description).
Investigate the effectiveness of the Health and Safety policy.
Interview my health and safety inspector. (Appendix ‘D’)
Distribute a questionnaire in the Neurology department to all fifty employees who work in the laboratories. (see Appendix ‘E’ and ‘F’)
Look at government Health and Safety policies and compare St. Bart’s to verify if their employees meet the requirements. (Appendix ‘G’)
I will evaluate how effective their health and safety policy is along with an evaluation of the efficiency of their fire and bomb-threat procedures.

Activity Log.

On the first day at the Institute of Cell and Molecular Science (07/07/08), I had an induction of the building in addition to the laboratories and I received a copy of the risk assessment and safety rules (Appendix ‘B’ and ‘C’). I was told what to do in the event of a fire (I had to evacuate the building and line up outside the church opposite the building). I was also told what to do in the event of a bomb threat (see Appendix ‘C’ page 18 -section 17).

I am going to be working as an assistant Lab-technician in the laboratories dissecting rat’s spinal-cords/brains and staining them for micro fluoroscopy. I will be identifying and explaining the use of neurones and receptors within the spine and describing how they generate pain, etc. I interviewed Jeff Maskell - the College Health and Safety Adviser – (see Appendix ‘D’) about his role within the Health and Safety sector and what action St Barts take against accidents or chemical spillages. He suggested that the University gives employees and students a lot more independence therefore they do not consistently remind them of the health and safety rules and regulations. He also showed me showers in the labs in case of a toxic chemical spillage on an employee and told me that all members of staff had to evacuate in the event of the inhalation of a violent, toxic and fatal chemical, e.g. Monosodium Methanearsonate. I also asked other questions about health and safety procedures, for example, whether the University holds annual meetings, whether they monitor the laboratories etc. Dr Maskell said that the Health and Safety at St. Bart’s only downfall is not supervising employees and especially work placement/experience students. After three days at work I understood what he meant by ‘lacking’ as I was left unsupervised working with noxious chemicals and sharp instruments, this is very dangerous and contradicted their Health and Safety Policy. They need to improve in this area of health and safety as anything could have happened to me and as a consequence, all the other employees.

The second day I spent at work experience (08/07/08), I printed off sixty-eight copies of a questionnaire about the employees views on health and safety at St. Bart’s (given to all the staff in the Neurology department) to be completed and given back to me by the Friday so I could summarise my findings. The questions I included were:

Q1. Are health and safety responsibilities made clear for staff and employees?
Q2. Do you have effective arrangements for communicating health and safety matters with other employees?
Q3. Do you have clear standards/procedures covering who does, what and ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Q1. Are health and safety responsibilities made clear for staff and employees?
Q2. Do you have effective arrangements for communicating health and safety matters with other employees?
Q3. Do you have clear standards/procedures covering who does, what and when? Please specify.
Q4. Do you wear the appropriate clothing/safety equipment (goggles, lab coat/ latex gloves etc.) needed for working in the laboratories? If not please elaborate.
Q5. Do you clean your hands scrupulously before and after entering the laboratories?

Q6. Do you have effective arrangements in place for the identification, investigation, notification and reporting of accidents and ill-health to employees?
Q7. Do managers monitor health and safety performance e.g. at management meetings?
Q8. Do you think that the health and Safety Policy could be improved? Why?

By Friday, I had received fifty of the sixty-eight questionnaires. In questions one, two, three and eight, people found that health and safety excelled in these areas, however agreeing that health and safety could be improved in general. In questions four, five, six and seven, most employees found that the Health and Safety policy was not effective in these areas such as employees not wearing correct clothing when in the labs or sanitation.

Comments made on some of the questions consisted of ‘lack of encouragement in wearing correct clothing in the labs’ ‘I’ve worked here for years and I’ve never needed to wear lab-gear’ ‘what’s the point in washing your hands when you’ve been wearing gloves?’ (The point obviously is risk of contamination!). The results that I concluded from the employee questionnaire is need of ‘nagging’ to get people to wear correct clothing whilst in the labs for the sake of their health and others; in addition to ‘nagging’ them to wash their hands! Posters by an unused sink are not effective enough. I noticed in my research that I was the only colleague in the labs to be wearing goggles, latex gloves and a lab-coat!

Soon after concluding my questionnaire research, I contacted the Head of the Neurology department and showed him my findings. He was just as displeased as I was and hosted a meeting for three weeks after my leave. They concluded that they needed more of a disciplinarian tone to stress the importance of following health and safety rules. As of next year, employees must follow the health and safety rules strictly (wearing lab-gear in labs at all time, promoting hygiene etc.) otherwise the consequences could be severe (they have even drawn up a contract for all employees to sign encouraging health and safety!).

Week two there was a fire alarm due to a faulty wire in the alarm system. All employees were evacuated and I was one of the only ones out of roughly five-hundred people who knew where we were requested to stand. I was appalled again to find that employees were actually leaning on the glass building unaware that the fire-drill may have been real! People were even heading off to lunch during the drill! I complained to the health and safety advisor and he said ‘well we cannot control everybody in a fire-drill’. There was no routine or procedure that people were aware of or could follow. I spoke with one of the lab-technicians and she believed that the whole six years she had been working at the Institute of Cell and Molecular Science; they had never had a fire-drill and could not remember where to stand in case of a fire or a bombing! However, I must applaud their consideration of what to do in case of a bombing as the building is centred in Whitechapel, London. (See Appendix ‘C’ page 18, section 17).

On day seven, I had a look at an online Health and safety website for Employers health and safety responsibilities . It exclaims:

‘Employers have responsibilities for the health and safety of their employees. They are also responsible for any visitors to their premises such as customers, suppliers and the general public.’

Whether St. Bart’s have successfully achieved this is another matter. The website also quotes on the role of the employer’s duty of care. They must:

Make the workplace safe.
Prevent risks to health.
Ensure that plant and machinery is safe to use, and that safe working practices are set up and followed.
Make sure that all materials are handled, stored and used safely.
Provide adequate first aid facilities.
Tell you about any potential hazards from the work you do, chemicals and other substances used by the firm, and give you information, instructions, training and supervision as needed.
Set up emergency plans.
Make sure that ventilation, temperature, lighting, and toilet, washing and rest facilities all meet health, safety and welfare requirements.
Check that the right work equipment is provided and is properly used and regularly maintained.
Prevent or control exposure to substances that may damage your health.
Take precautions against the risks caused by flammable or explosive hazards, electrical equipment, noise and radiation.
Avoid potentially dangerous work involving manual handling.
Provide health supervision as needed.
Provide protective clothing or equipment free of charge
Ensure that the right warning signs are provided and looked after.
Report certain accidents, injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences to both the Health and Safety Executive or the local authority, depending on the type of business.

The role of the employer is extremely important and demanding. My employer fulfilled all of these requirements where I was concerned and therefore successfully met with the demands of health and safety.

Evaluation

My findings and research on the University’s Health and Safety policy and how effective it was, resulted successfully. I discovered its strengths as well as its weaknesses. It excelled in the areas of the role of the employer’s duty to care, treating employees with independence, the bomb-threat procedures, communication between employees about standard procedures covering who does what, when and where, communication of health and safety matters between the employees and making health and safety responsibilities clear to the staff on the other hand, not enforcing these responsibilities need to be followed. However, they fail heavily in the health and safety of the employees themselves (in not wearing correct lab-wear), sanitation and hygiene entering and exiting the labs, enforcing rules of health and safety that need to be followed religiously, fire rules and procedures (doing regular drills to refresh employees minds of where to stand and exit the building), improving identification, investigation, notification and reporting of accidents and ill-health of employees and the health and safety advisers monitoring the activity within the laboratories regularly. I think that if there were more communication between the employers and their employees and an established framework of rules (such as the contract), then they would have an effective Health and Safety policy with which both employees and employers are content.

BY RACHEL SHORTLAND.