Hazardous Substances (COSHH)
What is COSHH?
COSHH stands for The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health regulations. Quite simply COSHH is the area of the law that requires employers to control substances to health.
What are Hazardous Substances?
Hazardous substances include both chemical and biological agents and cover a wide range of products from dust to viruses to cleaning products. These substances may be bought from a supplier or created on site through one of your work processes.
I’m an employer; how does COSHH affect me?
As an employer you are legally obliged to assess all potential hazards related to your work activity. Very importantly you are also required to prevent or adequately control the risks that are identified. If you employ 5 or more people you must also record any assessments that you undertake.
Can I just carry out a generic assessment on each substance?
Unfortunately no you can’t. Many other systems follow such an approach but for obvious reasons this doesn’t assist you in complying with the law. For example in your organisation you might mix two otherwise safe chemicals with each other resulting in hazardous fumes or the environment where you use a substance is completely different to where the manufacturer intended it to be used.
Every organisation is different and every organisation will use a substance in different ways. The key to carrying out a successful process assessment is to look at how you are using the substance in your organisation and what hazards are associated with that process. Only you are in a position to be able to do that.
How can AssessNET help me fulfil my obligations under COSHH?
AssessNET is a market leading online health and safety system developed by Riskex in conjunction with its parent company Safe and Sound Management Consultants who have over 20 years worth experience in Health and Safety Consultancy. AssessNET is modular which means that you can pick and choose exactly what aspects you need also that you only pay for parts of the system that you will actually use!
AssessNET’s COSHH assessment software has been specifically designed for undertaking and managing COSHH assessments. The main features of the COSHH module include:
- The ability to upload MSDS documents: These are datasheets available from the supplier of your substance which can be uploaded onto AssessNET. Once on AssessNET information can be easily extracted directly into the COSHH assessment saving you time and effort.
- Report Generation: AssessNET allows you to produce customised graphical reports for each assessment that are easy to read and can be distributed to your workforce.
- Task Management: AssessNET allows you to assign any remedial actions identified during the process to other AssessNET users. The task manager module then allows you to see the current status of the task and prompts the user at regular intervals to ensure it that they get completed. Review dates are also managed by AssessNET so once you’ve entered your assessments you never forget to review them when they are due.
AssessNET sounds great but what it need further help or advice
Sure! We are also able to offer a highly professional consultancy service where our consultants can come to your site, collate which substances you are using and then carry out process assessments on tasks that involve those substances. Each of these assessments will be completed on AssessNET so you still benefit from having a system managing your remedial actions and notifying you when re-assessments are due.