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Hi I am a member of the HSE's Higher and Further Education Advisory Committee's Occupational Health Working Party. We are currently working on sector guidance on the provision of Occupational Health Services in the HE and FE sector, a revision (read overhaul) of the 1990 guidance from ESAC. The question of health surveillance has been addressed within the document and the stance taken by the committee/HSE/HIFEAC is that students are classed as non-employees but come under Section 3 of HASAWA therefore health surveillance will be required. An existing document does state that students are non-employees, require the same duty of care as employees under S3 HASAWA although specifically stated health surveillance is not required. The issue of health surveillance is going to be difficult for many in the sector as we obviously have a huge intake in September/October period and logistically it is the busiest time of year anyway - how could the institutions manage baselines and surveillance for the student numbers that we are dealing with? The answer, I think (without HIFEAC OHWP hat on), is very very carefully managed exposure and exposure monitoring. I suspect that the need for exposure monitoring on Personal and General basis is going to be dramatically increased. I also suspect that given the difficulties in the insurance market, premiums for health cover (as aposed to Health and Safety cover) will be going up unless we can provide documentary evidence of exposure levels. Logically on from there I suppose we would need to keep them for similiar periods of time to COSHH records, although I am not sure how this fits into the DPA. Any thoughts? -----Original Message----- From: Trevor Ogden [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 04 February 2004 19:57 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Occupational Health structure Car I have another young relative at UCL and he has not complained, so you're in the clear! The issue over students did not arise over COSHH. But it seems to me that under COSHH Reg 3(1) a university must treat the protection of students just as if they were employees, whether they legally are or not, even undergraduates! The exception in COSHH (important I expect for OH services) is the need to provide health surveillance. More generally, I think that the risk assessment and protection provisions of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regs also apply to non-employees, but again, I think, not health surveillance. Does anyone know better? Trevor At 16:39 04/02/2004, you wrote: >Hi Trevor > >I work in a university where OH is for staff only but we do see post >grad students if we are notified that they are going to be exposed to >hazards as part of their studies. <snip> (Dr) Trevor Ogden Editor in Chief, Annals of Occupational Hygiene Annals on-line at http://www3.oup.co.uk/annhyg/ [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] North American Editor: Professor Stephen Rappaport, [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please remove this footer before replying. Visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/occ-health.html for list archives ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please remove this footer before replying. Visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/occ-health.html for list archives