Category: Health and Safety

Health and safety support and advice is as important as ever for your school during this very different academic year.

The Corporate Health and Safety Team at Haringey Council offers a Service Level Agreement (SLA) comprising the competent advice your school must have, plus other services, including the annual health and safety audit, for which you will receive an action plan and further advice and support to help you with implementation; access to our training courses, radiation protection advice and inspections if required, among other things.

Please bear in mind that the service level agreement runs from September 2020 to August 2021.

To sign up, please go to the New Traded Services Website, select Behaviour and Safety and then select 2020/2021 Health and Safety for Schools SLA.

Haringey Traded Service for Schools can now be accessed through the School Data Collection Portal. For access to the portal, please contact: s-schoolsreturns@haringey.gov.uk.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Alexis Correa, alexis.correa@haringey.gov.uk, 02084892928.

Schools are experiencing exceptional circumstances and challenges during the current Covid-19 outbreak. The Government has placed restrictions on contact with other people and we have all had to adapt our usual working patterns to suit. Schools are providing an essential service for the children of key workers and vulnerable children.
The Government has provided guidance for schools which are remaining open for these children and schools should refer to this guidance to ensure staff and pupils are kept as safe as possible during the restriction period. Public Health England – GOV.UK.
Health and Safety regulations have not been relaxed during the restriction period and the HSE expect statutory inspection, maintenance and testing to be completed as usual. The Corporate Landlord is working hard to ensure these statutory requirements are met. The areas that schools have responsibility for should also be maintained. These will be:
• Weekly testing of fire alarms.
• Weekly flushing of little used water outlets (two minutes).
• Weekly and monthly visual inspections of passenger lifts (including in car  communication systems).
• Monthly testing of emergency lighting.
The Corporate Health and Safety Team have provided guidance notes for schools to enable them to maintain suitable Health and Safety provision. Where schools have made local arrangements for statutory servicing of gas installations, fixed electrical testing, passenger lift annual thorough examination (LOLER) etc, contractors should be contacted to ensure they are able to attend the school and complete the required servicing.
Teaching and support staff must follow current Public Health England guidance in order to maintain good hygiene and to provide a safe environment which will help limit the spread of the corona virus.
• There is a dedicated helpline number for educational settings – please call 0800 046 8687 for any specific question not covered in this note.
• First Aid – Schools should complete a first aid assessment in line with DfE guidance.
Guidance for First Aid Provision. To assist you with your First Aid Risk Assessment you will find a flow chart for assessing requirements on appendix A.
Owing to the low population of students the requirements for first aid provision may be lower than during normal school occupation. As a minimum one trained first aider (paediatric dependant on age group) must be on site while children are present. Access to suitable first aid kits and welfare facilities should be maintained.
• Medicines must be stored and administered in line with children’s current care plans.
• Staffing levels should be in line with DfE guidelines appropriate to the number of children in the school.
• The schools general work activities Risk Assessment must be reviewed to ensure all controls already in place remain appropriate. It may be necessary to amend the controls to reflect the change in student and staff numbers.
• The school’s emergency evacuation plan must be reassessed to reflect the change in student and staff numbers. Use of the school may have to be limited to certain areas to ensure all children can be evacuated quickly and safely, ensuring there is adequate numbers of staff to effectively manage an evacuation.
• Maintenance of fire protection systems must be continued; this will include weekly testing of alarms.
• All other Health and Safety daily, weekly, monthly testing and maintenance of equipment and water must be maintained.
• Due to limited usage of the school it will be necessary to ensure that all little used water outlets are run for two minutes weekly. This will inhibit the proliferation of legionella and other bacteria in the water system.
• All Health and Safety arrangements should be reviewed regularly (weekly) and reassessed upon new government guidance.
Schools can contact Haringey Health and Safety Department by email using health.safetyadvice@haringey.gov.uk. This email address is monitored, and all emails will be responded to as soon as possible.
Appendix A

 
 

The Corporate Health, Safety and Wellbeing Board met on 12 November and approved the following documents:

• Schools Health and Safety Policy. There are no substantial changes on this policy. Please use this document as a template when you review next your school H&S policy.
•  Educational Visits Procedure. The procedure has been reviewed in line with current guidance and the fact that the Council uses the Evolve system to record educational visits. All visits should be recorded on Evolve. Category 3 visits do not require any more express consent from the Chair of Governors, only the Headteacher, who approves the trip via Evolve. The Corporate H&S Team will continue to review and approve category 3 visits. Please ensure your EVC and Head contact details are correct in Evolve and that your EVC is trained. If your EVC requires training, please contact health.safetyadvice@haringey.gov.uk
• Management of Radioactive Substances Procedure. This procedure formalises the processes that your schools should have been following already if you have radioactive sources. Remember that, if you buy into the Health and Safety for Schools SLA, our RPO will carry out a yearly inspection to help you with compliance.

 These documents will be uploaded shortly onto the Traded Services Website. These and all other H&S management system documents can be found in the Communication section, then select Article List, select all in the date section, and type a key word e.g. accident, for the accident reporting procedure and form.
If you have any queries, please contact health.safetyadvice@haringey.gov.uk or 020 8489 4589.

The subject of Asbestos Containing Materials (ACMs) is a delicate one, as uncontrolled exposure may have devastating health effects, especially for children.

ACMs were widely used in construction in the 20th century, until they were finally banned in the UK in 1999. Many school buildings contain ACMs, but if the material is not disturbed and it is in good condition, it is safe. The problem with asbestos starts when the materials are disturbed, releasing fibres into the atmosphere which children and others may breathe in.

The Control of Asbestos Regulations asks duty holders to manage ACMs so that their fibres don’t end up in our lungs. To ensure this, you need to:

• familiarise yourself with the Asbestos Management Procedure;
• have the latest copy of your asbestos re-inspection (most schools were inspected by Exova in 2017);
• if you have a copy of the school’s asbestos management survey, even better;
• fill in the Asbestos Management Plan (AMP) template.

The Asbestos Management Procedure and the Asbestos Management Plan are available in the communication part of the Traded Services Website / Health and Safety for Schools module.

Complete the template with information about your school. Then list each ACM on your original asbestos management survey (if available) or in the re-inspection report. Then follow each of the recommendations for each of the ACMs. They would normally be removal, encapsulate or monitor. If you have any of the first two categories and they have not been actioned, please contact the council’s School’s Corporate Landlord. Your AMP should list the ACMs in the monitor category. Then do that at the suggested intervals in your survey/re-inspection report, depending on the ACMs condition and location.

To monitor each of the ACMs, just check if they have deteriorated. If they have not, just record it. If they have deteriorated, please contact the council’s School’s Corporate Landlord.

• Before disturbing the fabric of the building for example, by drilling, by the premises team or a contractor, ensure there are no ACMs present by checking the survey/re-inspection.
• If significant disturbance of the fabric of the building will take place, a refurbishment/demolition survey must be organised before the works commence. Also, please inform the council’s Corporate Landlord.
• Your premises staff should have received training in asbestos awareness. I organised one course, but this wasn’t well attended. I will organise another course later in the year.
• Inform all your staff about the locations of ACMs likely to be disturbed, so they are aware not to disturb them. 

The council’s Corporate Landlord is organising asbestos management surveys for the schools that it is responsible for. 

I hope this article was useful. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Alexis Correa, Deputy Head of Service – Health and Safety

alexis.correa@haringey.gov.uk

020 8489 2928

In December 2018 the council approved the Corporate Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy. One of the important changes in the policy relates to incident reporting regarding Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) Regulations.

Employers are requested to report incidents to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) when a major injury is involved or when an employee cannot perform their normal duties for more than seven consecutive days following an incident, among other categories. Haringey Policy states that the Corporate Health and Safety Team will report to the HSE to ensure the required process is followed.

I would like to remind you that incident forms must be sent to the Corporate Health and Safety Team within three days of the incident happening. Please email the form to health.safetyadvice@haringey.gov.uk

In case of a serious accident, please call us immediately.

Alexis Correa

Deputy Head of Service – Health and Safety

020 8489 2928