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Safety Alert – Best safety practice at work – case study from the Department of Chemistry
29 January 2020
During summer 2019 an experiment at the Department of Chemistry resulted in an explosion during the night.
Whilst nobody was injured in the incident, the potential to cause damage or injury should not be underestimated.
Following the incident, the Department of Chemistry conducted a full investigation to identify the root causes and immediately implemented action plans for improvement of safety within the department.
Professor Carmalt Head of UCL Chemistry shared the following statement:
“Our systems allowed the experiment to be run after factors, such as replacing the solvent used in a procedure to one that could be explosive on heating, were missed during the risk assessment approval and it was clear that further training was needed for risk assessment preparation and approval, as well as access to equipment and chemials being more controlled"
Action to be taken
Organisational learning is a key aspect of health and safety management therefore Chemistry would like to share the findings of their investigation with the UCL community.
Lessons learned as well as actions taken to date can be accessed by UCL Staff only.
We recommend you review these and the status within your own departments so that further incidents of this nature can be prevented and learning from this incident can take place throughout the university.