Our Approach to Safety
The Department is legally obliged to ensure that staff and students performing potentially hazardous tasks are competent to do so safely, and that all reasonable measures are taken to ensure that the risks involved are kept as low as is practicable.
We ensure this by insisting that:
- All activities must be risk assessed in accordance with UCL policy before they are carried out,
- All staff and students must have received and understood all required safety training for activities before being allowed to do them,
- Our facilities, equipment and safety systems meet all the requirements of current safety legislation.
The Department’s Health & Safety Policy statement for this academic year may be found here and the departmental safety objectives can be found here.
These pages are a reference of Department safety rules and codes of practice, and ensure that our methods of training staff, safely working in laboratories and offices, and our auditing arrangements are collated, recorded, and made easily available to staff and students.
UCL-wide safety policy documents may be found on the central Health & Safety webpages. These pages contain further safety guidance and a list of available safety training modules. If you cannot find the information you require either on the UCL safety pages or on this site, please contact the department safety officer.
A wide range Health & Wellbeing of resources and guidance is available via the 'Remote not distant' website, Student Support and Wellbeing website and UCL Health and Wellbeing website.
For staff; Care First can be contacted 24/7 for confidential, impartial support. Call for free on 0800 197 4510. For students; support is provided by Student Psychological and Counselling Services (SPCS) during office hours (9am to 5pm)- Care First can also be contacted outside these times.
You can also download a copy of this information on our Health and Safety Arrangements document.