COSHH is the law that requires employers to control substances that are hazardous to health. You can prevent or reduce workers exposure to hazardous substances by:.
Most businesses use substances, or products that are mixtures of substances. Some processes create substances. These could cause harm to employees, contractors and other people. Sometimes substances are easily recognised as harmful. Common substances such as paint, bleach or dust from natural materials may also be harmful. The Regulations have a hierarchy of control measures which must be followed. The last control measure should be the use of personal protective equipment.
The employer must make sure that the control measures are properly used and maintained. If necessary they must monitor exposure and under some circumstances health surveillance must be provided.
Employees must also be properly informed, trained and supervised. Just having safety data sheets on file is not sufficient to comply with the requirements. Telephone: Email: EHTeam n-kesteven. Twitter - Opens in a new window. A vital oart of this is monitoring the products that are used within your facility and what hazard they could potentially pose to you and your team.
They should also be made aware of the potential risks that each chemical poses. This training should include how to use protective equipment effectively, how to monitor hazards, and how to spot a potentially dangerous substance. COSHH regulations state that you must provide your team members with protective equipment if potentially dangerous substances are being used.
Take a look at our extensive range - browse through now by clicking the following button. Share our article. The regulations are designed to make you consider the health effects that a substance might have, not just in the short-term, but also in the long-term.
There are literally thousands of different substance products used by people at work. Some of these substances are hazardous to health and can vary in risk from mild irritation to toxic or carcinogenic. Firstly, finding out what the situation is, and secondly, deciding what to do about it.
This could be anything from cleaning products, solvents, paints, sprays, beauty products, industrial products, varnishes, solutions, exhaust fumes, wood dust, flour dust, other dust As a starting point, you need to identify the substances used in your business which are hazardous. Once these substances are identified you should put together a COSHH register so that you can easily access the information on each substance.
You can then assess what the situation is with each substance, and this should form the first section of your COSHH assessment. Considerations should focus on what effect the substance could have, who is likely to be exposed and how, and what currently happens to control the risks. Based on your assessment, you then need to decide what control measures are necessary to protect those that could be potentially exposed to the substance. You may be able to eliminate the risk and prevent exposure by substituting the substance for a harmless or less harmful substance.
This will not always be possible, and you will, therefore, have to consider which control measures will be appropriate to reduce the risks and comply with the regulations. As an employer, you must reduce the risks as far as is reasonably practicable. This does not mean eliminating all risks, but it does mean assessing the risks and putting adequate control measures in place to reduce those risks as far as you can reasonably be expected to do so.
Remember, the purpose of a COSHH risk assessment is to find out what the situation is and decide what to do about it. Part of this involves assessing what the risk is - the higher the risk, the more controls you will need to put in place to protect your workforce.
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