Safety Alert - First Aid

Posted on Tuesday 15 July 2025

As part of their first aid arrangements, each department is advised to have provisions in place to clean up body fluids and decontaminate work surfaces themselves. 

The university cleaning team recommend using the following clean up kit and standard operating procedure:

• SPILL KIT - Bunzl Body Fluid Clean Up kit
• Clean Up Procedure for Body Fluids (PDF , 373kb)

The biological waste bags can be disposed of in 2 ways:

1. Laboratories - if the incident occurred in a laboratory or near a laboratory, then the waste bag can be disposed via the usual solid hazardous laboratory waste route.
2. Non-laboratories - if the incident occurs in non-lab areas (e.g. offices, public spaces etc) then a request should be raised via Facilities Helpdesk to arrange collection of the waste bag by cleaning services. 

University Cleaning Services

University cleaning services may be able to assist with the clean up of body fluids from first aid incidents, provided that they are outside of scientific laboratories and during working hours listed below. Departments should primarily have their own provisions to deal with body fluid clean up, and not rely on the cleaning team.