Occupational S&H in the case of large public facilities: A specially designed and well tested approach

Occupational Safety and Health (OS&H) appears to be a particularly complex topic in the case of large public facilities open to the patrons (Ministries, public offices) due to a number of quite typical characteristics that, consequently in many cases, can make inadequate the usual approaches to the OS&H problems suitable to the industrial activities or secondary educational institutions. The paper discusses the results of a multidisciplinary work -made exhaustive thanks to the presence of highly qualified experts in the staff- carried out in cooperation by Italian Universities for the definition of a Guideline for the Occupational Risk Assessment and Management of employees and students in the Italian Universities. The Guideline was specially conceived to substantially improve the continuous effort towards the OS&H management in a sound quality approach, and provide for each person the actual residual exposure to Hazard Factors, resulting from a consistent and undoubtedly updated System and Job analysis. The Guideline, since the very first step of the study, stresses the paramount importance of a detailed and unambiguous definition of the Line and Staff Organization upon which to base the approach composed by 3 basic hierarchical phases. The Guideline was carefully tested both in terms of general approach and in some sub-applications to special critical topics. The importance of the presence, among the Universities teaching and research staff, of resources qualified on OS&H aspects should not be underestimated. Their deep knowledge of the local situation can be, in fact, a precious help both in the Occupational Risk Assessment and Management for complex problems, and in organization of Information, Formation and Training -IFT-.