27 April 2004 - HSE's COSHH Compliance Project Report
Last year HSE undertook a COSHH project based on major hazard sites in South Wales. The aim was to examine how well employers were complying with the COSHH Regulations and controlling exposure in the major hazard industries. The findings of the project are applicable to anyone dealing with COSHH issues. The HSE is hoping that by publishing the findings on its website and sharing the information with anyone who deals with COSHH across all industries, they can further raise the profile of and compliance with COSHH.
The four main aims of the project are to:
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assess the compliance of major hazard sites in Wales with COSHH
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identify common areas of compliance and non-compliance
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raise the profile of COSHH
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improve standards of compliance with COSHH.
It was concluded generally that the participating companies made significant extra progress with compliance, but among the findings it was found that:
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higher levels of the hierarchy of control were too quickly dismissed, often with poor justification for rejection
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careful thought at the design stage of processes can reduce potential for exposures - this was under-utilised
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‘best fit’ controls were deemed to be the easiest to employ rather than those of higher priority in the control hierarchy
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where COSHH was more prescriptive control measures were generally good
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regulation 6 (assessment) was the least complied with
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in some cases poor or no justification of the control measures was made, with information often copied from data sheets regardless of task
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few assessments highlighted the consequences of exposure, something necessary to decide what is ‘reasonably practicable’ when justifying control measures
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in some cases there was poor identification of exposed persons and how long they could be exposed
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generally there was no clear identification of the different routes of entry
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poor links to supporting documents.
The HSE's COSHH From Experience web site can be accessed here.
The COSHH Compliance Project Report on the HSE web site can be accessed here.
Also on the HSE web site:
COSHH - Hazard identification and risk assessment here.
COSHH – Achieving control here.
COSHH – Workplace monitoring here.
