Faculty of Medicine

Guidelines on implementation of Imperial College’s Out of Hours and Lone Working Policies for staff members and postgraduates

Contents:

Introduction

College Policy

Normal Working Hours

Building Access Periods 

Risk Assessment

Responsibilities

General Faculty Procedures

Emergency Procedures

Risk Assessment and Lone Working Authorisation Forms

Lone Worker Ticklist (on consideration of out of hours work)

Lone Worker Ticklist (on arrival)

Line Manager Ticklist 

Introduction:

The Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires the College to provide a safe environment, safe equipment, and safe systems of work for its employees and those working on its premises. These requirements are applicable to all work situations and particular attention must be paid to situations where staff are working alone outside normal working hours. 

Lone Working Definition:

Lone working is where a person works by themselves without close or direct supervision or contact with others, for example: 

• Where only one person is working in an area and there is no one to provide immediate assistance in the event of an emergency. 

• Workers working by themselves away from their fixed base. 

• Working with a patient, student or client in a segregated area. 

This can be dictated by the type of work undertaken e.g. time courses or length of experiments or availability of samples or equipment. It can also occur because of deadlines for papers, conferences or thesis submission. 

For the purpose of the policy out of hours working is considered equivalent to lone working in both risk and procedural requirements. 

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College Policy:

1. It is College policy to ensure that all lone working is avoided where reasonably practicable to do so. 

2. No-one may work alone without prior agreement from his or her supervisor. This agreement will be dependent on a risk assessment that will take into account the level of competence of the person intending to work alone and the type of work undertaken. All risk assessments must be reviewed regularly, at least annually, in line with College guidelines. To be noted, if the nature of your work has changed in any way a new general Risk Assessment  or Laboratory Risk Assessment form must be completed to reflect this. 

3. Where lone working cannot be avoided, safe working is to be facilitated by: 

a)     Carrying out risk assessments to identify the hazards, assess the risk  and put appropriate control measures in place. 

b)    Liaising with other employers with regard to the risks to their employees if they are working alone in a space that is owned or leased by the College.

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Normal Working Hours:

Lone working outside normal working hours (Faculty of Medicine’s standardised hours 07:00 – 19:00 from Monday to Friday, excluding public bank holidays and College closure days and regardless of building access times) carries a greater risk because core services are not available. If these hours are outside those in which core services are available adequate local provision for such services must be made. 

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Building Access Periods:

Please refer to the Faculty of Medicine Access Hours  list (on Faculty of Medicine’s Health & Safety website).

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Risk Assessment: 

Lone Working may, under certain circumstances, be permitted, once a general Risk Assessment  or Laboratory Risk Assessment has been conducted by the supervisor. Once signed, this must be reviewed every 3 months and approved by the line manager. 

All activities require a risk assessment form to be completed, this will determine the level of risk (please refer to the Risk Tables for guideline levels of risk). Depending on the level of risk, determined by the risk assessment, the lone worker may need to complete a Lone Working Authorisation Form . TO NOTE, ALL LABORATORY BASED ACTIVITY REQUIRES A LONE WORKING AUTHORISATION FORM TO BE COMPLETED.

People covered by these risk assessments will be permitted to lone work with permission of their line manager. However these risk assessments need to consider not only safety whilst at work but also site-specific issues relating to personal security e.g. leaving work alone during hours of darkness.

Certain tasks and entry into certain areas will be identified by risk assessment as high risk. Where the risk cannot be lowered, conducting these tasks or entering these areas (see risk tables  for examples) is prohibited. Those tasks which are deemed unacceptable to be performed by a lone worker under any circumstances must be documented in the written record of risk assessments kept. This policy excludes risk assessments and codes of practice for CL3 & CBS labs which have their own inductions. Please refer to the relevant SID Code of Practice held locally, for further information please contact your relevant SID manager. For CBS please go to their safety website.           

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Responsibilities:

Head of Division/Section/Group: 

• To ensure that all lone working is avoided where reasonably practicable to do so. 

• Should seek justification from the lone worker for working out of hours. 

• Ensure that systems are in place to identify and control the risks from lone working for all of their staff, postgraduate students, & visitors. These should include carrying out risk assessments to identify the hazards, assessing the risks and then identify, implement, validate and monitor any control measures. 

• Demonstrate that the lone worker is competent in the work technique via necessary training programmes, use of control measures and emergency procedures. 

• Establish appropriate emergency procedures and contacts for dealing with all emergencies for lone workers. 

• If the lone working is a regular occurrence, monitoring the individual by occasionally visiting him or her during the works, reviewing the work, ensuring the scope of the agreed work is not exceeded and checking that the risk assessment remains valid. 

• Limits should be agreed with the lone worker as to what can and cannot be done while working alone. Lone workers should not be allowed to scale up or make alterations to protocols that could increase the hazards or risks associated with the work without prior approval from their supervisor and amending the risk assessment as appropriate. 

• Undertake periodic audits to ensure that the delivered procedures are being followed. 

• Check that the lone worker has no medical conditions (see Occupational Health guidance in Lone Worker below), which would make them unsuitable for working alone before they undertake lone working. (Please refer to the Faculty of Medicine Lone Working Authorisation Form  - Declarations of the Lone Worker). 

• Ensure that the Division/Section/Group has emergency procedures and general first aid requirements in place which are recorded and updated regularly. Please see College’s guidance on Fires, Accidents, Emergencies and Contingencies (PC-09). 

The Lone Worker – before they undertake lone work: 

• Occupational Health advises that anyone intending to or required to work alone should inform their manager if they have a medical condition or disability or are taking any medicines which might affect their safety when working alone so that a risk assessment can be undertaken and appropriate measures to mitigate risk organised if necessary.
  
  Relevant medical conditions or disabilities are ones that may:

- Cause loss of consciousness or sudden incapacity e.g. epilepsy, diabetes, some cardiac arrhythmias
- Impair awareness of emergency alarms e.g. impaired hearing or vision
- Make it difficult for a person to rapidly evacuate a building without assistance 

Details of any medical condition causing an impairment need not be disclosed but the manager should be provided with sufficient information on the nature of the resulting impairment to assess the risk, if any, posed by lone working. No disclosure need to be made for medical conditions where there is sound reason to believe the condition will not pose risk e.g. epilepsy that is fully controlled on medication, diabetes treated by diet alone. 

If an individual is uncertain over whether they need disclose an impairment or medical advice is needed either to assess the risk from lone working or to specify measures to mitigate risk so as to safely permit lone working, the College OH Service can be consulted for advice. 

• Ensuring that they have obtained prior permission for lone working from his or her line manager/supervisor and that the relevant Risk Assessment and Lone Working authorisation form has been filled out and digitally signed by all relevant parties. 
  
  
• Ensuring that the identified control measures are implemented. 
   
• Ensure all equipment must be used in accordance to manufacturer instructions. Electrical equipment should have a recent portable appliance test certificate. If equipment has not been used for a while, the user should check the leads, connections and any safety interlocks before use.
   
• Ensure that they know what to do in the event of an accident or injury or any dangerous occurrence and make sure they know how to summon help and where the first aid kit is. For example, are there any special first aid requirements? If so, should the work be done alone? Have they had recent fire training? What should be done if there is a centrifuge failure?

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General Faculty Procedures:

Section Safety Co-ordinator should: 

• Authorise the electronic Lone Working Authorisation forms once all signatories have been collected.
   
• Ensure that the lone worker has access to the building for out of hours work (dependent on access hours).

The lone worker should for out of hours work: 

• Inform his or her line manager that lone working will be undertaken.
   
• Complete the relevant Risk Assessment and electronic Lone Working Authorisation form (where applicable).
   
• The Lone Working Authorisation form should only be completed for high risk activities.
   
• For low risk activities (such as computer work) they should ensure they have swiped in/out of the building after 18:00.
   
• Provide their line manager with contact details.
   
• Inform their line manager, work colleague of the time he or she expects to leave the premises.
   
• Keep within the scope of the agreed work and work areas.

The Departmental (SID) manager should: 

• Keep up to date lists of who can authorise Out of Hours/Lone Working forms. These lists should be sent to Faculty Centre on a quarterly basis for audit purposes.
   
• Keep up to date emergency procedures and general first aid requirements and make them available to all Departmental (SID) staff.

The building manager should: 

• Ensure that the building is secure and that the services are running. 
   
• Ensure that the Head of SID and/or SID manager is aware of any significant disruption or any issues relating to services and facilities within that building. 

The Faculty Centre should: 

• Audit the swipe card usage against the Lone Workers lists, supplied by the SID managers, on a quarterly basis.
   
• Inform Heads of SIDs and/or SID managers of consistent offenders who are accessing Faculty buildings out of hours without completing a risk assessment and/or a Lone Working Authorisation form.
  
  

• Highlight the audit exceptions to the Head of Building Operations.

Imperial College Security should: 

• Send quarterly data of out of hours swipe card usage for all Faculty of Medicine buildings to Faculty Centre for audit purposes.
   
• Provide an out of hours service for emergency response and general first aid requirements. 

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Emergency Procedures:

• The lone worker should be aware of local emergency procedures, such as contacting the Emergency Services. Please see Occupational Health’s guidance.
   
• Additional information on getting help after a laboratory accident can be found here.

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Risk Assessment and Lone Working Authorisation Forms:

The general Risk Assessment  and Laboratory Risk Assessment  forms and Lone Working Authorisation Form  (as applicable) need to be completed by the member of staff who intends to work alone (out of hours) and this must be digitally signed (see Digital signature instructions ) by their line manager/Head of Group/Section or Department.

The form then must primarily be digitally approved by their relevant Section Safety Co-ordinator (or in their absence the relevant Campus Health & Safety Manager): 

St Mary’s and Northwick Park – Tracey Norris (t.norris@imperial.ac.uk) 

Charing Cross – Sukwinder Singh (sukwinder.singh@imperial.ac.uk) 

Hammersmith – Sally Campbell (s.campbell@imperial.ac.uk) 

Royal Brompton & Harefield; Chelsea and Westminster; South Kensington – Helga Koch (helga.koch@imperial.ac.uk)

Copies should be kept by the following: 

• Lone Worker
• Group Head/Line Manager
• Section Safety Co-ordinator
• Campus Health & Safety Manager

Lone Worker Ticklist (on consideration of out of hours work):

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Lone Worker Ticklist (on arrival):

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Line Manager Ticklist:

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