Health and Safety in the School of Biology Donna Pierz-Fennell School of Biology Manager dp61@st-andrews.ac.uk Health and Safety Officer Purdie 352, x3626

Safety and the Lab Science is a hands-on discipline You’ll be doing many activities in the lab that potentially require the use of hazardous chemicals and (expensive!) lab equipment Safety for you, and for others sharing the lab space, is the School’s number one priority

School of Biology Health and Safety Manual School of Biology has an online H&S manual on our website Find it (and bookmark it!) from the Biology home page, linked under ‘Staff Resources’ to the Health and Safety resource section: http://synergy.st-andrews.ac.uk/biocurrentstaff/health-and-safety/

Safety in the School of Biology At 51+ pages, the H&S manual is not environmentally sensible to print out a copy for each person... Contains information on: School H&S structure General Lab safety Safety regulations and procedures Security after hours and overnight

Responsibilities of Staff and Students in the Lab Supervisors have a duty to ensure the day-to-day Health and Safety of staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students working in their lab. In order to do this, all Staff and Students need to advise supervisors, lecturers, demonstrators or technicians in the lab about all accidents, dangerous incidents or near misses.

Safety First: Your Responsibilities in the Lab Good lab practice is to be responsible at ALL times. No fooling around or practical jokes —these can go wrong and get someone hurt. You’ll have chemicals on your hands, so be aware of how you handle items like phones, tablets, lip balm and telephones. Food and drink are absolutely not allowed in the lab. EVERYONE is responsible for keeping the lab a safe place to work!

Do you recognise an unsafe situation when you see one?

Safety in the lab means always being prepared for the unexpected…

A final thought... If you don’t know, ask. Please ask. Ask anyone. Just don’t ignore the question and hope it goes away. Sometimes it does, but not in the way you expected...