Speakers at Auditing for maximum impact – an introduction

Working address:
Sky Cottage, Hereford, England HR1 4ED

Email: julia@compactsafety.org

Professional Qualifications:

• Lead Auditor ISO 45001
• NEBOSH Diploma P1
• Biosafety Practitioner (Level 1)
• PTLLS - Level 3 Award in Education and Training
• IOSH Behavioural Safety Trainer

Present Professional Position: Self-employed consultant; consultant for Hastam

Special Remarks

Julia has worked for almost forty years in UK universities, as a researcher, technician, laboratory manager and safety advisor. Her first employment was working for the National Institute for Research in Dairying, on developing an isolation media for Bifidobacterium, obtaining isolates direct from the faeces of human adults and neonates. This involved working on the benchtop as this was prior to COSHH and Containment Laboratories were yet to be in introduced. After this she moved to the University of Reading to work with plant pathogens in commercial hydroponic systems, and then to work developing insecticide resistance assays using various Heliothus spp, before moving into laboratory management, eventually becoming a University Safety Advisor and Assistant Biological Safety Officer.

Julia moved to Imperial College to work in the School of Medicine, where she introduced the first internal audit programme for the School’s departments and CL3 labs (it was reputed to have more CL3s then Porton Down). In 2005, she became the Lead Health and Safety Auditor at Imperial College London, where she also designed and implemented its health and safety management system. She identified the need for, obtained funding, then wrote and designed the first two on-line safety training programmes in a UK university. These were aimed at staff, students and contractors, and covered safety induction and the foundations of risk assessment.

Julia has extensive experience of auditing higher risk research institutions and UK universities, as well as auditing every aspect of university life. She left the university to take up a new career as a safety consultant for Hastam, and for her own company, and continues to mentor for IIRSM as well as for other university colleagues. Julia is a qualified trainer of many years’ experience; and with her ISTR colleague, Jillian Deans, she jointly developed and co-presented a specific course for the Institute of Safety in Technology and Research (ISTR), on auditing Containment Level 3 laboratories. She developed her audit teams’ skills, and those she mentored have gone on to successful careers in health and safety.

Relevant Publications:
Chapter author: ‘Challenges for Health and Safety in a Higher Education and Research

Organisations
Fellow of the Institute of Safety in Technology and Research (ISTR)