The Faculty and Central H&S Department provide policies and guidance notes covering various aspects of health & safety. Here is the FHMS Safety Policy - please take a look at this if you haven't seen it before.

FHMS has a Safety Committee that meets twice a year to discuss how to improve H&S performance in the Faculty. The Chairman is Dr Nicolas Locker. Here are the minutes of our most recent meetings:

Some other things you may be interested in are set out below.

Late working
In order to work outside normal working hours your University card must be validated to give you access: permission should be sought from your manager or supervisor, by completing an Access Approval Form, in advance of any work being undertaken outside of normal hours.  These forms are available from the Safety Adviser.  A Lone and Hazardous Working assessment will also be required.

Lone and Hazardous Working
Lone working or work involving hazardous activities in a laboratory may require extra precautions. All such work must be covered by a hazardous working risk assessment in line with the Late and Lone Working Policy.  Here is the Risk Assessment form you will need to complete. If the work is High Hazard, you will need to involve the H&S Adviser in your Risk Assessment process.

Risk Assessments
The University requires that any activity where a significant hazard is identified is supported by a written Risk Assessment. 

A hazard is something that has the potential to cause harm e.g. chemicals, biological materials, electricity etc. The risk is the chance, great or small, that someone will be harmed by the hazard.

There are five steps in the risk assessment process:-
1. Identify the hazards.
2. Decide who might be harmed and how.
3. Evaluate the risks arising from the hazards and decide whether existing precautions are adequate or more should be done.
4. Record your findings using the Risk Assessment form and discuss them with your Safety Adviser
5. Review your assessment from time to time and revise it when necessary.

Hazardous Substances
Work involving hazardous substances in the University must be carried out according to the Hazardous Substances Policy. Hazardous substances used by the Faculty/Unit must be assessed prior to use and that exposure to any substance is prevented or where this is not reasonably practicable adequately controlled.  You will need to do an assessment to decide this. 

The University has a CoSHH Risk Assessment form to use for this.  Here is a completed CoSHH form that shows how this assessment might look.  You should do this for a distinct procedure or a process in your work, rather than for individual chemicals on their own - as in 'use of Methanol in my research'.  Here is a list of the CoSHH assessments on file.  Please make sure you have assessments for all of your work with hazardous materials!

Using carcinogens, mutagens and teratogens (CMTs) safely
The Faculty has Local Rules for the handling of CMTs and has a dedicated HEPA filtered glove box for use with these materials.  Please contact the Safety Adviser (Neil Chapman) if your work involves exposure to known - or suspected - carcinogens, mutagens or teratogens. The Faculty Specialist Adviser on Carcinogens is Prof. Costas Ioannides. 

Using Nano-materials safely
The HSE have provided a guidance note on the Risk management of carbon nanotubes.  The Faculty shares a facility for the safe handling of powdered nano-materials with FEPS.  Please contact the Safety Adviser in FEPS (Kevin Joyce) or the Safety Adviser in FHMS (Neil Chapman) for details.

Biological Material
The Biological Safety Officer for the Faculty is Dr Esen Wooff.

If you work with biological material e.g. micro-organisms, cell cultures, parasites, human or animal tissue (including blood, urine and other body products) or plant material which gives rise to a risk of infection, allergy or toxicity then you must work according to the University of Surrey Code of Practice for Work with Human Blood products and other tissue specimens and the FHMS Biosafety and Biosecurity Code of Practice. If you work in the laboratory please make sure that you are familiar with these local rules.

The FHMS Disinfection Policy and the BSC Fumigation Procedure are also available here to download.

Overseas Travel and Insurance
If you are travelling overseas on University business or if you are involved in organising overseas field trips you must follow the advice given in the University Travel Policy. Consideration must be given to the risk associated with the proposed travel with a risk assessment undertaken as part of the travel planning process.  Please send a copy of the completed assessment to the Faculty Health and Safety Adviser.

Driving on University Business
Staff who drive a vehicle on University business (including privately owned vehicles) need to comply with the requirements of the University Driving at Work Policy and supporting arrangements.  Further details can be found on the University's H&S Website.

Here is the Driver Approval Form.  Please complete this and return it to the HR office on level 3 of the DK building prior to first driving on University business.