Working Safely in the Colloid Group Labs

You must undertake a risk assessment for all procedures carried out in the School of Chemistry. There are no exceptions to this. No work goes on in the lab until a risk assessment has been done.

This assessment is for your benefit as well as that of your coworkers in the laboratory and anyone else who may have to enter the laboratories routinely (cleaners, building supervisors) or in an emergency situation (porters, security, fire brigade). In preparing for an experiment, it must be remembered that your coworkers may not understand fully the risks of your reactions, let alone other non-chemists who may be involved.

The ideas outlined here are intended to allow us to work efficiently and safely in the labs as well as meet our legal obligations.

Categories of Procedures

The School of Chemistry has the following classification system for the risks of a procedure:

A	Those in which work may not be undertaken without close senior supervision i.e. the presence of the Supervisor or of a Senior Post-Doctoral nominated by the Supervisor
Bp	Those in which work may not be started without Supervisor's advice. (Postgraduate)
Bu	Those in which work may not be started without Supervisor's advice. (Undergraduate)
C	Those with some risks (other than A and B) where care must be observed but it is considered that workers are adequately trained and competent in the procedures involved.
D	General laboratory practice.
E	Those which, even without training, have very low levels of risk.

• Tasks in category A should never be assigned to Undergraduates. Post-doctoral Assistants and Academic Visitors may be considered to be senior enough if they themselves are carrying out the work.
• Those in category B are subdivided depending on the experience of the researcher. Vacuum traps that could condense liquid oxygen fall in this category.
• Tasks C require a small amount of training but form a large part of the 'background' of daily business and fall outside of Category D.
• Tasks D (General Laboratory Practice), includes the procedures covered in Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories and there is a reasonable expectation that all persons due to carry out research work are competent in these tasks.
• Tasks E are associated with projects that are purely theoretical or computational and which require no written risk assessment.

For all but the lowest categories of work (D and E), a Risk Assessment must be prepared before work begins. A record of this assessment must be kept in the lab book.

Experiment in Progress

An 'Experiment in Progress' sign should be put on all unattended reactions; this includes overnight, at lunchtime and even during a coffee break. This helps others in the lab become more aware of what is going on around them as well as providing necessary emergency information to coworkers, security staff and emergency services personnel.

Combined Risk Assessment/Experiment in Progress

To minimise the amount of paperwork associated with undertaking routine risk assessments and preparing 'Experiment in Progress' signs, the combined form shown below can be used. The following principles apply:

• The use of these forms as an 'Experiment in Progress' form is mandatory.
• These form are also a record of the risk assessment; paste the form into your lab books after use. This, combined with the general risk assessments (updated at least yearly through DLM) and special risk assessments (as needed) should be sufficient to undertake good assessments of the risks involved in day-to-day work as well as complying with the safety regulations. As each of these forms is tailored to the specific reaction being performed, they will not have out-of-date information on them.
• Any procedure that requires boxes in the Hazard List section to be ticked is probably in category C or higher on the above list and will require the reverse side to be filled in to provide more details of the procedure being undertaken.
• Any category B or C procedures will require a supervisor's signature prior to laboratory work commencing, unless the worker is 'licensed' for the procedure as detailed below. In such cases, the researcher can sign the 'approved' section themselves and does not need a supervisor's signature on the form.
• Both electronic and paper versions of these forms will be available and the forms themselves will be reusable in some circumstances.

• RA/EIP: PDF for printing
• RA/EIP: Word doc for filling in (print the Word document with duplexing on the short edge!)

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