Departmental Health & Safety Officers (DHSOs)

The Departmental Health and Safety Officers ( DHSOs ) are departmental representatives for health and safety issues and form part of the University of Otago Employee Participation System. Their main functions are:

• To complete hazard identification and maintain the hazard registers for their Department. Any hazard requiring escalation should be reported to their supervisor or HOD .
• To oversee incident reporting for the department including investigations utilising the health and safety IT system.
• To complete the staff induction for new staff with respect to health and safety requirements
• For a list of current DHSOs in your department/division, please contact: hsa@otago.ac.nz

DHSO training

The DHSO training programme has been revised and updated, based on the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Systems Framework. Most of you will be familiar with the content, however, we have refreshed the training to refer to the ISO standard.

The training now consists of systems-based training (e.g. context, scope, event management, etc.) along with information on the critical risk groups and risk mitigation. There are four sessions to attend in any order you wish. Two-hour sessions have been scheduled in May, June, August and October and are available on the Health and Safety training webpage for enrolment.

View DHSO Training/Updates sessions

Please enrol in one of each session.

Contact us with any questions regarding enrolment.
Email hs.training@otago.ac.nz

Vault system guides and support

• Adding incidents via the web portal (DOCX)
• Adding training (DOCX)
• Adding training using Course Scheduling (larger groups) (DOCX)
• Completing an event investigation (DOCX)
• How to add a fire drill (DOCX)
• How to add an incident when logged into Vault (DOCX)
• How to check whether you have any overdue incidents for investigation (DOCX)
• How to download and use the Vault Notify App to report an Incident (PDF)
• How to produce an event/incident report (DOCX)