ChemRegs Newsletter – August 2020

BSI Guidance “Safe working during the COVID-19 pandemic”

The BSI (British Standards Institution) has issued Version 3 of its guidance document to help organisations manage the effects of the pandemic and ensure safe workplaces for their employees.

BSI’s “Safe working during the COVID-19 pandemic – General guidelines for organizations” provides guidance to business owners, managers, workers and other users. It is intended for use by organisations of all sizes and sectors, including those that: have been operating throughout the pandemic; are resuming or planning to resume operations following full or partial closure; are re-occupying workplaces that have been fully or partially closed; and are new and planning to operate for the first time.

It also provides guidance relating to the protection of workers of all types, including employees, volunteers, contractors, those on zero-hours contracts, freelancers and the self-employed, and other relevant interested parties (e.g. visitors to a workplace, including members of the public).

This document does not provide specific guidance for workers in high-risk clinical roles. Organisations operating in clinical, healthcare and other settings required to implement specific infection control protocols should refer to the relevant legislation and guidance provided by the applicable government, regulators and health authorities.

This document is not a formal standard, but a set of guidelines, building on the formal guidance issued by the UK Government (see our July Newsletter) and other regulators and professional bodies. However, it is understood that the guidelines are currently under consideration for development as an international document through ISO.

The guidelines use the Plan – Do – Check – Act approach (PDCA), familiar to users of other BSI standards.

Plan: plan what needs to be done for the organisation to work safely (sections 4 to 8).

Do: do what the organisation has planned to do (sections 9 to 12).

Check: see how well it is working (section 13).

Act: fix problems and look for ways to make what the organisation is doing even more effective (section 14).

Key changes in Version 3 include an Executive Summary and guidance on:

planning for changes to restrictions at local, regional and national levels
testing, contact tracing and quarantine, and two new annexes on:
protective security considerations, and
accessibility and inclusion considerations.

The current and previous versions of the guidelines are available here https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/topics/novel-coronavirus-covid-19/covid-19-guidelines/

Other News

ADR/RID 2021, IMDG 2020 (40-20) and IATA 2021

The pandemic has caused the postponement of many meetings of the bodies that approve and produce the modal dangerous goods regulations, including ADR, RID, IMDG and IATA. This has meant that some modes may be later in publishing than usual.

Latest information on expected dates of publication are as follows:

ADR 2021 – expected to be published 30 November 2020 (for information on all known changes see our April Newsletter)
IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations (DGR) 62nd Edition 2021 – due for publication 20 September 2020
IMDG Code, 2020 Edition (Amendment 40-20) – no information. The previous code, IMDG Code, 2018 Edition (Amendment 39-18) is valid for use until 31 December 2021.

For more information on anything in this Newsletter, please contact us at info@chemregs.co.uk

Print »