What is CoSHH and Who Must Comply?

Published Date: 27th July 2010

Each year, thousands of workers develop ill health as a result of their exposure to hazardous substances. They may develop diseases such as asthma, cancer or dermatitis.

As an employer, it is your responsibility to ensure effective measures are in place to control exposure and protect the health of your workers. This responsibility is a legal requisite held in place by the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (CoSHH) Regulations 2002.

There is an 8 step process to follow in order to comply with CoSHH:

Step 1: Find out what the health implications are created by hazardous substances used in or around your place of work.

Step 2: Decide what precautions should be taken to prevent harm to health. A CoSHH assessment will help you to identify which work exposes your employees to hazardous substances.
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Step 3: Provide control measures which adequately prevent or control exposure. If exposure is not preventable then it must be sufficiently controlled.

Step 4: Ensure that control measures are used and maintained and

Step 5: that safety procedures are adhered to.

Step 6: Provide all necessary information, instruction and training for employees (also considering others that this may involve such as contractors, visitors).

Step 7: Carry out health surveillance and monitoring in appropriate cases.

Step 8: Have emergency plans and procedures in place to deal with accidents and incidents involving hazardous substances.

The majority of businesses use substances or products that are a mixture of substances. These could cause harm to employees, contractors and other people. CoSHH Regulations relate to a large variety of substances and preparations which have the capability of causing harm if they are inhaled, ingested or exposed or absorbed through the skin.

These encompass individual substances or preparations such as paints, metals, cleaning materials, pesticides and insecticides. They also include chemicals which are deemed toxic, harmful, corrosive, irritant, sensitising, carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction. Biological agents are also covered under CoSHH Regulations for example micro organisms such as bacteria, fungi and viruses. Substances hazardous to health can appear in many other forms such as solids, liquids, vapours, gases, dust, fumes and smoke.

In order for an employer to decide whether substances produced in the workplace are covered by CoSHH they need to consider the following:

- Some substances can present different hazards in their different forms, e.g., a substance may not be harmful in solid form but could be harmful when made into powder form which can be inhaled into the lungs;

- Contaminants in a substance can make it toxic; some fibrous substances can be potentially hazardous to health;

- Some substances have a known health effect although the cause is unknown;

- Exposure to more than one substance at the same time or one after the other can have an added or collective effect;

- New or emerging agents could cause a hazard to health which has not already been identified;

- An unforeseen emergency situation during work such as a dangerous chemical reaction could produce a substance hazardous to health.

If your unsure if your company has an obligation to comply with the CoSHH regulation or unsure if any CoSHH hazards exist in your organization? Please call our free confidential help advisers for our free CoSHH information pack, discuss the company's operations to see if CoSHH is applicable to you?

A general conception of CoSHH is that it's confusing and expensive to be compliant. This is not true and we can assist you to demonstrate how much it doesn't cost to become compliant and how easy it can be.

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