Department of Biological Sciences National University of Singapore

Transcription

1 1. Purpose : This SOP details procedures on laboratory safety inspection by the dept safety lab technologist at departmental and faculty level to ensure safe practices and to maintain a safe working environment in the Department 2. Scope : Principal Investigator, Research staff/students, Teaching staff, support staff and RMBR staff 3. Responsibility: 3.1 Departmental Head to stress the importance of laboratory safety at monthly departmental meetings. He should give full support in terms of finance as well as endorsed findings. Support the Safety team when principal investigators are not cooperative. 3.2 Safety Comm Chairman has the responsibility to support and back up his team who are handling the audit inspection to ensure that staff under his charge are not unfairly penalized by PI in the course of their duties. Wherever possible he or the co-chairman to accompany the dept lab safety technologist during the inspection and to endorse the findings. 3.3 Principal Investigator to assign responsibilities to each and every member of the lab to maintain the general safety in the laboratory. To make sure that all lab members are trained in safety and handling of the equipment and that all members are in compliance with the dept safety rules and regulations. 3.4 Lab-based students New students/staff will be required to attend Safety Induction Training to be held by Faculty of Science 3. Support staff Keep up with the latest safety acts/legislations. Make sure the labs they support are in compliance with the safety acts/legislations. Keep all members in the lab informed of new acts or changes. Operation specialists to perform their weekly duties and keep the labs clean.

2 4. Procedures: 4.1 Department Zones The department is divided into 4 zones for audit with one Safety Laboratory Technologist in charge of one zone. 1. Zone 1 comprises of building S1A level 3, 6 & Zone 2 comprises of building S1A basement, level, 4, and building S1. 3. Zone 3 comprises of building S2 level 1 to level and building S2 basement (EM Unit) and aquariums. 4. Zone 4 comprises of building S3 level 1 to level and Garden. Zone comprises building S6 (RMBR). 4.2 Safety Laboratory Technologists in charge of Audit 1. Liew in charge of Zone 1 and Dept Coordinator for all Lab Safety Audits at departmental & faculty & university levels 2. Mok Lim Sum, Michelle in charge of Zone Mrs Ang Swee Eng in charge of Zone Allan Tan in charge of Zone 4.. Kelvin in charge of Zone. 4.3 SOP for Safety Audit Inspection at Department Level 1. From 2007, 2 internal safety audit inspections at departmental level per year.

3 Internal Safety Audit Inspection exercise is carried out in 1 st Quarter (Feb/March) and 3 rd Quarter (Sept/Oct) of the year. 2. Each dept safety laboratory technologist will audit inspect the zone he/she is in charge in the first audit inspection of the year. In each exercise, the whole dept will be audit inspected. 3. The dept safety lab technologist then rotates the zones in the second audit inspection of the year. This to make sure that there is uniformity and nothing missed out in the audit inspections in a year. 4. Laboratories are audited against an Audit checklist, which is revised periodically to cater to the needs of the Department.. For documentation, one audit checklist is used for every laboratory. 6. After each Audit, an audit inspection report is prepared by the safety laboratory technologist. 7. This audit inspection report is circulated to the principal investigator and members of his laboratory. 8. Follow-up action is carried out by a re-inspection audit. 9. The re-inspection audit is usually done 2 weeks after the first inspection report has been circulated to the laboratories concern. 10. The re-inspection audit carried out by the 4 safety laboratory technologists is necessary to ensure that the faults mentioned in the Inspection report have been rectified. 11. Faults which are not rectified should have valid reasons and this is recorded in the re-inspection report. 12. The re-inspection report with dates of the rectification is once again circulated to the principal investigator and members of his laboratory.

4 13. The inspection report and audited forms for each zone kept in one ring file for each calendar year. 4.4 SOP for Safety Audit Inspection at Faculty Level 1. Safety Audit Inspection at Faculty Level is audited by the Safety Officer from the Faculty of Science. He may or may not be accompanied by a Safety Officer from Office of Safety, Health and Environment Department (OSHE). 2. The Department co-ordinator for Safety Audit arranges and fixed the date and time for the Audit Inspection. 3. The audit inspection is done by the Safety Officer from Faculty of Science accompanied by the department coordinator for Safety Audit, the safety laboratory technologist in charge of the zone and the chairman of the Department Safety Committee. The Safety officer from OSHE may or may not be present. 4. The audit inspection at Faculty level exercise is carried out once a year. Each audit is scheduled usually a month after the second audit is completed.. Laboratories are audited against the Department Audit Checklist. The Safety Officer from the Faculty of Science has the choice of whether he wants to use the checklist for his audit. 6. Non-compliance with safety are captured in a camera and will be inserted into the audit inspection report. 7. Approximately 2 weeks after the Audit, the Safety laboratory technologist of the zone will receive an audit inspection report from the Safety Officer from the Faculty of Science.

5 8. This audit inspection report is circulated by the department safety audit coordinator to the principal investigator and members of his laboratory 9. Follow-up action is carried out by a re-inspection audit. 10. The re-inspection audit is usually done 2 weeks after the inspection report has been circulated to the laboratories concern. 4. Ad-hoc Safety Audit at Departmental level 1. Notification of visits to department laboratories by an outside body (eg BMRC, OED) to the Safety Committee. 2. Frequency - once to three times per year. 3. Chairman of Safety Committee informed department safety audit coordinator to arrange for an internal audit. 4. A safety audit inspection for the whole department or the laboratories concern will be conducted by the department safety laboratory technologists prior to the visits.. An audit inspection report will be prepared and circulated to all the PIs and members of the laboratories. 6. All faults to be rectified before the visits.. Safety Precautions The safety technologist in charge of the zone notified all the Principal Investigators & support staff of all the labs prior to the audit inspection. The audit team should be in full PPE (laboratory coat, covered toes shoes, gloves or goggles or mask if necessary) when audit inspection of the laboratories. The lab safety technologist checked with the Lab member on any extra precautions to take besides the above before entering the laboratory.

6 Full compliance with PPE for BSL II labs. Disposal labcoats & shoes covers necessary for audit inspection of BSL II labs.