Key Safety, Health and Environmental (SHE) Information for STFC staff based in Polaris House, Swindon​​​

Ultimate responsibility for the Health and Safety of STFC staff based at Polaris House lies with STFC Executive Directors and up to our Executive Chair. STFC Polaris House based staff are in effect tenants on a non STFC site operated by the UKRI Office Estates team. A consequence of this position is that STFC staff based at Polaris House come under two Health and Safety management systems under the same UKRI Health and Safety Policy.

UK​​​RI Health and Safety

Health and Safety arrangements for those based at Polaris House have been established by the UKRI Office Estates Health and Safety team responsible for providing policy and information to those staff who are based at the Bristol, London and Swindon sites.

All UKRI Health and Safety information is available via the Source.

• UKRI Policy and current codes.
• Office Estates Health and Safety Strategy.
• Polaris House Emergency Procedures. (Basic fire safety principals and Emergency Evacuation measures are covered in the Polaris House Annual Fire Training).​
  
• First aid arrangements.
• Working at Home (sharepoint.com)​.
  
• ​IT equipment for remote working​
  

STFC He​alth and Safety

ALL STFC staff based at Polaris House should be familiar with the STFC Health and Safety Management Arrangements Policy, relevant SHE Codes.

A number of the STFC SHE codes are not relevant to STFC staff working in Polaris House ; those that are have been documented in a one page summary for office based staff - “STFC Office SHE Essentials”.

STFC also establishes annual health and safety objectives to highlight a few key areas of focus for SHE improvement during the coming financial year. These should be built into annual Departmental SHE Improvement plans and your Annual Performance Development Review (APDR) objectives.​

Injury/Incident reporti​ng

Injuries that occur whist working from home should be reported and UKRI have provided guidance on this. This includes highlighting any incidents of muscular skeletal issues associated with use of DSE equipment and work-related stress.

All injuries that occur on the Polaris House site must be reported via the UKRI Evotix Assure Portal.

It is important to report any ‘near misses’ as these provide valuable learning opportunities to improve Health and Safety performance.​​

Health and Safety T​​rain​ing

UKRI led Health and Safety Training

All STFC staff based at Polaris House staff must complete the following mandatory on-line training/refresher training provided by UKRI (previously on Knowbe4) via Go1:

• Local Site Health and Safety induction
• Polaris House Annual Fire training *
• UKRI Health and Safety Awareness​
  

You can access the platform by clicking on the link : https://ukri-peoplelearningportal.mygo1.com and then click on the Azure login.

* To find the fire training module, type Polaris into the search field in Go1. The correct course comes up fourth in the list, followed by the UKRI health and safety induction training.

Display Screen Equipment (DSE) training for Agile Workers course is available via WorkRite, providing information and assessment on setting up your workstation. This DSE training is managed by the UKRI Health and Safety Team who arrange for the login details to be sent to all staff upon joining (if you require assistance accessing the system, please contact healthandsafety@ukri.org.)

Please discuss any issues identified via the assessments with your line manager.

All staff should have at least one formal desk assessment (DSE) on the system for their main desk, whet​her that be situated at home or at work. When using hot-desks, all staff should informally assess their workstation and adjust it to their requirements ( NB- please do not adjust a workstation that has been formally allocated to another person as their sole workstation).

STFC has provided guidance on hybrid working which includes including a generic risk assessment for home working. 

STFC led Health and Safety Training.

In addition to UKRI led mandatory SHE training, STFC requires staff to complete a suite of additional courses. These additional courses are located on TOTARA STFC's Learning Management System, including:

• STFC Polaris House SHE Induction/refresher
• Asbestos Essentials
  
• Electrical Safety Essentials
  
• STFC Health and Safety Management Arrangements Bitesize

STFC SHE Group maintains a list of all courses they offer; these can be found in the STFC SHE Training Catalogue​.​

Travel

The UKRI Travel Policy contains all the guidance relating to official business travel.

Important : International SOS – all travellers should download and become familiar with the ISOS Assistance App, which provides direct access to the 24 / 7 / 365 support services for travellers in the UK and while overseas including updates on emerging threats near your location.

Further details can be found here:​

​

Any traveller can call Internatio​nal SOS Assistance Centres and request advice or assistance on any travel related issue, whether it be language difficulties and you require a translator, a lost wallet or passport, or a medical emergency. The App is available in Google Play and the Apple App store.

Specific STFC guidance on SHE issues associated with travel is provided by STFC SHE Code 8: Travel on Council Business. This includes some guidance for travel risk assessments for both UK and overseas travel.

Further advice and information on all areas of road safety and accident prevention is available from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) https://www.rospa.com/road-safety/advice/drivers​

Further Information

Further general SHE advice please contact the STFC SHE Group or your Departmental Safety Contacts: