Edith Cowan University Human Resources Services Centre Human Resources Services Centre Edith Cowan University Meeting Minutes – 20 September 2017 Meeting Min Safety and Employment Relations Telephone: 08 6304 2302 Email: [email protected]Safety and Employment Relations Telephone: 08 6304 2302 Email: [email protected]University Health and Safety Committee Minutes of the third meeting (2017) of the University Health and Safety Committee which was held at 10.00am on Wednesday 20 September 2017 in Room 1.447 on the Joondalup Campus and via videoconference to 1.107 SW Campus and 10.308 Mount Lawley Attendees General Members Apologies Jenny Robertson Chair, Director HRSC Professor Arshad Omari Senior Deputy Vice- Chancellor Professor Lynne Cohen Phillip Draber Manager and Chief Risk and Assurance Officer Lesley Roza HRSC Safety and Employment Relations Adrienne Seery HRSC Safety and Employment Relations Belinda Owen Leanne Norbury HRSC Safety and Employment Relations Ben Knox HRSC Safety and Employment Relations Martha Cavanagh HRSC RBHSC Project Fiona Peters HRSC Strategic HR School / Centre / Committee Management Representative Health and Safety Representative Apologies School of Education Gill Treichel (via videoconference) Professor Lynne Cohen School of Arts and Humanities Paul Godfrey (via videoconference) WAAPA Kurongkurl Katitjin Melissa Van Elburg (via videoconference) School of Business and Law Penny Holmes-Brown Sue Stenmark ECU South West Campus Professor Lyn Farrell Anne-Marie Pankhurst School of Engineering Xiaoli Zhao Yong Sun (Deputy) Adrian Styles School of Medical and Health Sciences Danielle Brown Doreen Mackie School of Nursing and Midwifery Jo Gosling Kelly Dillon Chris McCafferty School of Science Phyll Mahon Paul Roach Student Services Centre Dr Glenda Jackson Greg Lehman Facilities and Services Centre Graeme Knights (Deputy) Maxine Plant Phil Pearson Local HS Committee - Strategic Governance Services, HRSC Amanda Mulligan
Transcript
Edith Cowan UniversityHuman Resources Services Centre Meeting Minutes – 22 June 2015 Human Resources Services Centre
Edith Cowan University Meeting Minutes – 20 September 2017
The Chair, Jenny Robertson, performed an acknowledgement of country and welcomed members to the third meeting of the University Health and Safety Committee for 2017.Apologies were noted.
2. Minutes of University Health and Safety Committee Meeting held on 14 March 2017
The Committee received and noted the minutes of the second meeting of the University Health and Safety Committee for 2017 held on 12 June 2017. The minutes were confirmed.
3. Outstanding Actions
There were three outstanding actions from the previous meeting. All three remain open and the status of each is outlined below.
Meeting #
Action Outcome Status
1, 2017 SER to work with Risk, FBSC and AthenaSwan regarding developing broadertravel safety information and advice forthe University
Discussions have been held with key stakeholders to establish the work group.First work group meeting held 4 September. Update provided as per agenda item 12.
Open
1, 2017 Ergonomic assessment and equipment pur-chase processes, including sit‐stand desk procedures, to be finalised. Presentation to be provided at the next meeting of the Com-mittee.
Presentation on improvements to date to be provided as per agenda item 6.
Open
2, 2017 SER to arrange an appropriate time with Matt Higgins for the UHSC members to visit the workshop.
Timing to be around WAAPA pro-ductions.
Open
P A R T A – I T E M S F O R D I S C U S S I O N
4. School of Medical and Health Sciences Presentation – Research Laboratory Chemical Improvements
Kitiya Dufall, Research Laboratory Manager from the School of Medical and Health Sciences, presented an overview of the improvements to chemical storage and purchasing and trial of the use of the Qartzy system in the research area for chemical purchasing and tracking. These are the improvements that saw the SMHS Laboratory team nominated for the 2016 Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Contribution in Health and Safety Practice.
A copy of the presentation is provided below.
Areas of improvement highlighted within the presentation include:
Edith Cowan UniversityHuman Resources Services Centre Meeting Minutes – 22 June 2015 Human Resources Services Centre
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• Segregation and disposal of old, expired and damaged chemicals and kits as well as those belonging to staff who no longer work at ECU.
• Trial of the Qartzy free software within the Research laboratory for increased transparency, tracking and control of chemical purchasing
• Reorganisation of Chemalert• Increased awareness of the role of the Radiation Biosafety Hazardous Substances Committee
Ongoing work and future improvements include: Conducting workshops on chemical risk assessments and the use of Qartzy within the School Barcoded tracking of chemicals through ChemAlert ChemAlert training for staff and students Trial of Qartzy within the teaching areas of the School.
5. Radiation Biosafety and Hazardous Substances Project update
Martha Cavanagh presented an update on the Radiation Biosafety Hazardous Substances Project including: Actions taken to date to address the administrative needs for adequate operation of the RBHSC Development of a centralised website for RBHSC information on the ORI support website The finalisation of an approved manual RBHS application form and process flow. The intent is to
have an online system however the concept brief is currently approved but unfunded. Progressive development of Standard Operating Procedures Draft recommendation of the required ongoing resources to support the RBHS requirements at ECU
is currently under development.
A copy of the presentation is below.
6. Ergonomic improvements
Leanne Norbury provided an overview of some of the improvements underway to improve ergonomics at ECU
Changes prompted by the evolving needs related to changes in technology since the Australian Standards were first developed in the 1980’s. This includes the use of iPads, tablets, iPhones and the associated issues that arise from this such as thumb pain.
Some of the improvements and initiatives include:o Including ergonomics in OSH rep trainingo Use of pause break software and appso Manual handling training scheduled for October to include workstation set upo Back care workshopso Encouraging areas to consider use of loan vari-desks for use by staff with temporary
disabilitieso Development of an ergonomics brochureo Update of ergonomic self-assessment checklistso Review and update of ergonomics guidelines and formso Implementation of a height adjustable desk request form and process
7. AUSA Conference Presentation
Adrienne Seery and Martha Cavanagh provided an overview of some of the key presentations and field trips from their attendance at the 2017 conference of the Australasian University Safety Association in Hobart. Please contact the Safety and Employment Relations team if you’d like a copy of the presentation.
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There have been no significant incidents since the Q2 meeting of the University Health and Safety Commit-tee.Ben Knox provided information on some of the plans for Safe Work Month in October including:
Information and resources to be shared with OSH reps and committees OSH reps thankyou breakfast event scheduled for 27 October 2017 at Joondalup Resort Invitation was issued to OSH reps to attend the Perth Safety Symposium on 13 October 2017. The
Symposium is being hosted by ECU Mount Lawley.
9. Legal updates
Adrienne Seery provided an update on WA’s adoption of the harmonised Work Health and Safety legislation.
On 12 July the WA State Government released a media statement announcing the development of a single, all industries Work Health and Safety (WHS) Bill for Western Australia replacing the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984, Mines Safety and Inspection Act 1994 and Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Safety Levies Act 2011. Previous plans for a separate Bill for the Resources Sector will no longer be progressed. The statement noted that a number of industry specific regulations will support the new WHS Bill, allowing the resources sector to continue to use a risk-based approach and Petroleum and major hazard facilities will continue to use a safety case approach.
The development of the new single WHS Bill will include establishment of a Ministerial Advisory Panel to advise on the development of the harmonised legislation. Stakeholder and community consultation will also be conducted with a planned introduction of the Bill into State Parliament mid-2019.
10. Due Diligence Reporting workshop outcome
Following the Due diligence reporting workshop held in Q2 2017, WHS Committee Chairs were asked to provide feedback on their preferred version of two new draft due diligence checklists. As the feedback on the two versions was mixed and some areas preferred the existing checklist, it is proposed the 2016 Due Dili-gence Checklist remains in place for 2017 and the Safety and Employment Relations team continue to work with Schools and Centres to refine the new version.
This proposal was endorsed by the University Health and Safety Committee and the 2016 Due Diligence Checklist will remain in place for 2017 reporting.
11. QFM Hazard Reports
At the first meeting of the UHSC in March 2017, on behalf of the School of Arts and Humanities, Kurongkurl Katitjin, WAAPA and School of Education local HS Committee, Paul Godfrey raised concerns regarding QFM and notifications on the closure of events being inadequate, specifically
1. Jobs were being closed without any notification as to the work that was done to resolve the hazard.2. Jobs were being closed and new ones created without the reporter being notified as to the progress
or outcome of the new job
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At that meeting, Belinda Owen provided advice given by email by Kevin Hall, Manager Buildings and Services:
Facilities Managers and Brookfields have been instructed to sample 10 events per week and check quality of information being provided and also reinforced the standard of work required.
A solution to jobs being closed and new jobs created without the reporter being notified has been identified in the last 2 weeks and will be tested with a view to changing process. This should then resolve the problem of a customer receiving a job closure when more work is actually required.
It was agreed at the meeting that the situation would be monitored to determine if the solutions proposed resolve the issues experienced. As six months have passed, the UHSC is seeking feedback from members on the effectiveness of the solutions implemented.
Feedback was provided by UHSC members including: School of Science and School of Nursing advising of the need to chase feedback on actions taken
and the status of reported hazards eg leaks School of Education noting that jobs are still closed without feedback on action taken or without issue
being fully resolved School of Medical and Health Sciences providing positive feedback on the communication and
management of a recent issue
It was determined that, whilst the issues have not yet been fully resolved, these should be raised on a case by case basis with Facilities and Services Centre.
12. Travel Safety Working Group Update
Adrienne Seery provided feedback on the first meeting of the Travel Safety Working Group in early Septem-ber. The working group includes representatives from Safety and Employment Relations, Finance and Busi-ness Services, Risk and Assurance and International Office. A representative of the Athena Swan team is still being sought.
The working group reviewed existing ECU travel information and information from other Universities. Key re-commendations include:
Risk and Assurance to work with FBSC (Policy and guideline owner) to review the risk to ECU of Senior Leadership travelling together and include reference to this within Travel policy
Travel work group to propose a structure of travel safety information to be contained on a website, ideally hosted by Strategic Governance Services
Review of TAS system and update with any required links and information Addition of Travel Safety information to next updates of inductions and OSH for Managers and Su-
pervisors courses
The UHSC was asked to endorse the recommendations of the Travel Safety Working group and the recom-mendations were endorsed. Phillip Draber noted that SGS were comfortable to host the travel safety website location.
P A R T B – I t e m s f o r N o t i n g
12. QARC report – Q2 2017
Noted
P A R T C – O T H E R B U S I N E S S
13. Hepatitis B Vaccine Shortage
Dani Brown noted the widespread shortage of the Hepatitis B vaccine and the potential impact on ECU staff and students. The Schools are working together with Legal and Risk regarding this and it was suggested Dani and Phillip Draber provide an update on the actions being taken at the next UHSC meeting.
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Action: Phillip Draber and Dani Brown to provide an update on actions taken regarding the Hepatitis B vaccine shortage at the next UHSC meeting.
13. ML Committee Structure
Following the Academic Reorganisation, the Mount Lawley based Schools of School of Arts and Humanities, Kurongkurl Katitjin, School of Education and WAAPA retained a shared local WHS Committee. Following a trial of this arrangement over the past 18 months, the Schools feel it would be more effective to run separate individual School Committees with Kurongkurl Katitjin remaining paired with the School of Arts and Humanit-ies. The Executive Deans of each area have endorsed the request to change the structure and, as a process step, are requesting endorsement from the UHSC. The UHSC endorsed the requested split into separate School Committees to commence in 2018.
14. Ritualize
Fiona Peters provided an overview of the new Ritualize program. More than just a step challenge, Ritualize is built on the latest neuroscience behind ‘unlearning’ habits and developing healthier rituals. It is an annual program with a number of mini quests for only $20. This includes a Xaomi bluetooth activity tracker, plus free access to the program for two friends or family, external to ECU, with the option to continue on other chal-lenges for free. Register now through the wellness portal.
Meeting Close: 11.30am
Signed: Date: 18 October 2017 Jenny Robertson, Chair
