I was excited about starting Unit B of the course because I find hazardous agents in the workplace a really interesting topic.
I got to Santia House a bit early and started chatting to some of the students I had become friendly with during the first two weeks of the course. Our Week 3 tutor introduced herself as Krys Browning. I was pleased to see a successful female delivering the course content, especially as the health and safety industry used to be dominated by male professionals.
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Krys has a number of years’ experience in health and safety, and human resources management mainly in manufacturing and construction. She is also a Chartered Member of Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (CMIOSH) and a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (Chartered MCIPD).
We began on the Monday morning with element B1 of the NEBOSH National Diploma unit B. We spent the day looking at legal framework and how it applies to chemicals. REACH is the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals Regulation, EC 1907/2006. We covered the key elements of this regulation and what it does. Krys also talked through Classification, Labelling and Packaging Regulations, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 and Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, as well as some other relevant regulations.
There was a lot to take in but I was familiar with aspects of these regulations already so it wasn’t all completely new to me.
The next day we began with the principles of epidemiology and the relevance of toxicological data. I was keen to learn about the alternatives to animal testing such as Ames Assay (In Vitro) and Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSARs). “In Vitro” refers to testing which takes place in the laboratory rather than in the living organism and QSARs are mathematical models used to predict toxicity.
On Tuesday afternoon we covered element B2 looking at the assessment of risks. In my current job role assessing risk is a critical part but it was nice to have a refresher and look at an example exam question with a possible answer.
We started element B3 on Wednesday morning. This element concentrated on engineering controls and personal protective equipment. We learnt how to calculate the minimum protection required (MPR) when using respiratory protective equipment (RPE), which I found really interesting.
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The next day Krys talked to us about element B4; monitoring and measuring. The role of an occupational hygienist is to identify, assess and control health hazards in the workplace. Krys explained how to interpret a hygienist’s report, ensuring the strategy and methods are suitable and that results are valid.
In the afternoon on Thursday we focused on element B5 which looked at the types and properties of biological agents found at work, this included anthrax, norovirus, e-coli and cryosporidiosis.
On Friday we covered B6; physical agents 1 – noise and vibration, including the effects of noise and methods of measuring noise.
The key things I learnt
During Week 3 I realised just how many different hazardous agents there are in the workplace. Some are more severe than others but as a health and safety manager it is my responsibility to ensure nothing is overlooked. I’m looking forward to returning to work and implementing what I have learnt.
Homework
Before starting Week 4 we were advised to look through our notes and complete all the homework questions from Week 3. I had already completed revision for Unit A so I was confident I could apply the same techniques to this new course content.
Check back for the next instalment of Jo’s journey through the NEBOSH National Diploma.