Health and Safety Committee Meeting
Thursday 18th October 2012
Chair: Roger Buckle [RB]
Minutes: Rachel Harrington [RH]
Committee: Robin Ball [HoD], Julie Brannon [JB], Sue Burrows [SB], Alan Burton [AB], Jeanette
Chattaway [JC], Robert Day [RD], Jon Duffy [JD], Robert Johnston [RJ], David Walker [DW], Steve
York [SY]
Apologies: None
Action
1. Minutes of last meeting
(3rd
July 2012)
The minutes from the last meeting were approved.
2. Matters Arising from 03/7/12
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JC has moved offices at Millburn House from the workshop to room A1.12
The issue with the door control locks in the radiation laboratory hasn’t been resolved
Action – RB to follow this up
It was reported that there has been an issue with spillage when decanting cylinders,
which is a potential hazard
Action – JB to follow this up
3. Chair’s business
3.1 Accidents/Incidents
RB
MJH reported an incident regarding a student who cut their finger with a scalpel by
mistake
The new procedure for reporting accidents is to complete the accident/incident form
online. The link for the incident form is:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/healthsafetywellbeing/incidents/incidentreport/
3.2 Deployment of cylinders
Cylinders will be moved to Physics and are also due to be moved to MAS and Millburn
House in due course
3.3 Progress online testing
This is an on-going issue which has been left with ITS for now. The software and
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programme testing will sit under LDC for now
3.4 Hazard planning for campus
An external company (name needed) is developing a hazard planning piece of software
which will assess the hazards for every room on campus. Therefore all rooms will have
a hazard rating – this is important for identifying the room locations of cylinders and
gases
3.5 Zoning hazardous areas and testing cryogenic tanks
In house CVD training is in progress
All cryogenic tanks are being tested in Physics. Tests to follow in MAS and Physical
Science
3.6 Training for new starters
All training for new postgraduates is completed. This was selective modules for
students nominated by their supervisor on topics relevant to their research. All
modules will be available on the Health and Safety website. Any new students who
haven’t undergone training should be referred to RB.
3.7 New Health and Safety website
The new website is currently in development to improve the layout and update the
material
3.8 Electrical testing
RB circulated information regarding electrical testing to the Safety Office and has a list
of items which require testing. He raised the issue of visual inspections to test the
items and using colour coded stickers. The Committee approves these but agrees it is
best to have a nominated person from each research group to carry out visual
inspections and to sign the stickers with their initials. The stickers will act as a back-up
to items that have already been or due to be PAT tested.
JD
3.9 Lab work
RB reminded the committee to raise the importance of cleanliness in labs amongst
their research groups. This follows a clean-up of one lab by Mark Hadley and potential
health and safety issues caused by unlabelled chemicals left on surfaces
4. Specialist areas
4.1 COSHH
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R
Nothing to report. Only issue is regarding orders placed on opera, which doesn’t offer a
system for managing and identifying the purchasing of chemicals
4.2 Radiation
The annual monitoring collaboration was completed last week. There has also been an
issue with radiation related orders on Opera. These require approval from JD and RB
before being sent off but for the most recent order, only approval was received from
RB before the order was sent off.
Action – JD to raise the issue of approvals for radiation based orders with MJH
4.3 Lasers
Nothing to report
4.4 Safety office
Nothing to report
5. AOB
Nothing to report
The next meeting is TBC
Signed ___________________________________________________________
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Roger Buckle, DHSO