1.0 Purpose

To ensure that all employees, indirect personnel and others who may be affected by HSC activities are adequately protected from chemical, biological and physical hazards

2.0 Scope

The procedure is applicable to HSC facilities to fulfill the general and also the legislative requirement.

3.0 Responsibilities

3.1 Operational Manager

Ensure that appropriate workplace risk assessments are performed

Ensure adequate maintenance of protective equipment

3.2 Medical Executive

Maintain a register of persons who may be potentially exposed and to review that register at appropriate intervals

Maintain appropriate documentation for twenty years.

4.0 Description

4.1. Definitions

4.1.1 Industrial Hygiene: The discipline of anticipating, recognizing, evaluating and controlling a broad spectrum of biological, chemical, and physical hazards that can affect an employee's health. Generally these may include: vapors, gases, mists, dusts, fumes, smoke, aerosols, high frequencies of sound and light, ionizing and non-ionizing radiation and noise and vibration.

4.1.2 Physical Agents: Sources of energy that may cause injury or disease e.g. noise, vibration, radiation, and extremes in temperature and pressure

4.2 Risk Assessment

4.2.1 A workplace risk assessment must be carried out on all sites in order to identify potential chemical, biological or physical hazards, detrimental to human health and the risk of exposure.

4.2.2 Risk assessments can be made as part of, or as an extension of a more general risk assessment i.e. if a substance hazardous to health present in the workplace is also a risk to the safety of employees, e.g. they are flammable, unstable etc., it may be beneficial to perform a combined risk assessment.

4.2.3 The risk assessment must include consideration of:

The hazardous properties of the substance or physical agent

How the hazard arises i.e. produced or given off, e.g. as fumes, vapor dust etc. by a process or an activity or as a result of an accident or incident

Information on health effects provided by the supplier, including information contained in any relevant material safety data sheet

The level, type and duration of exposure

The circumstances of the work, including the amount of the substance involved

Activities, such as maintenance, where there is the potential for a high level of exposure

Any relevant workplace exposure limit or similar occupational exposure limit

The effect of preventive and control measures which have been or will be taken

The results of relevant health surveillance

The results of monitoring of exposure

In such cases, it is necessary for HSC to carry out ambient air and work zone monitoring and / or measurements to determine exposure, particularly where operations are complex or specialized and the substances involved have an occupational exposure limit

4.2.4 The risk assessment must be reviewed regularly (at least annually) or if:

There is reason to suspect that the risk assessment is no longer valid

There has been a significant change in the work to which the risk assessment relates

4.3 Hierarchy Control

4.3.1 The following principles are adhered to in order to reduce the risk of exposure:

Remove any potential hazard through risk mitigation

Substitute any known high-risk substance for a less hazardous substance

Contain the hazard by separating the hazard from the person or by enclosing the person from the risk

Organize the work to reduce the exposure to the hazard

The use of personal protective equipment (PPE)

4.3.2 Control measures must be periodically reviewed, particularly where exposure level is near to exposure limits subject to regulatory controls, which may change.

4.4 Monitoring of Exposure at the Workplace

Monitoring is done when any of the following circumstances apply:

When failure or deterioration of the control measures could result in a serious health effect, either because of the toxicity of the substance or because of the extent of potential exposure, or both

When measurement is required so as to ensure that an occupational exposure limit or other working standard is not exceeded

As an additional check on the effectiveness of any control measure iv. When any change occurs in the conditions affecting employees' exposure which could mean that adequate control of exposure is no longer being maintained, e.g. an increase in the quantity of a substance used or changing systems of work or introducing new plant

4.5 Health Surveillance

4.5.1 All persons who are potentially at risk to significant exposure to chemical, biological or physical hazards (or when there is a legal requirement to do so for a specific hazard) must be entered into a register, which must be maintained and reviewed on a regular basis

4.5.2 Where PPE is the only source of protection, or if monitoring shows that an exposure above legal requirements has taken place, then those persons exposed must also be subject to health surveillance.

4.5.3 Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV)

Where LEV or extraction fans are used to remove airborne substances from the breathing zone of persons, the following must be adhered to:

Air monitoring must be carried out periodically

The extraction systems must be subject to maintenance procedures

Air monitoring and maintenance documentation must be retained for a period of twenty years

4.6 Information and Training

4.6.1 Information, instruction and training provided will include:

Details of the substances or physical agents hazardous to health to which the employee is liable to be exposed including:

The names of those substances / physical agents and the risk which they present to health

Any relevant occupational exposure limit and other legislative provisions which concern the hazardous properties of those substances / physical agents

Access to any relevant material safety data sheet

The significant findings of the risk assessment

The appropriate precautions and actions to be taken by the employee in order to safeguard themselves and other employees at the workplace

The results of any monitoring of exposure and collective results of any in health surveillance undertaken, in a format calculated to prevent those results from being identified as relating to a particular person

Why, how and when the hygiene measures provided must be used

5.0 Records

Records of Ambient Air and Work Zone Monitoring

Records of Health check-up

Pathological Test Reports