A COSHH assessment is the process of identifying hazardous substances to your employees. All employers have a legal obligation to protect their employees' health and safety at all times. The assessment should identify potential concerns as well as the protections you have put in place, or plan to put in place, to keep everyone as safe as feasible.
COSHH exams are more comprehensive than standard assessments and should cover the complete workplace. You can save time by purchasing a COSHH risk assessment template to ensure you cover all of the necessary information and can quickly adopt any required actions.
The information necessary for this type of assessment varies based on the industry in which you operate. The HSE provides a number of risk assessment examples to assist you understand what should be included in your evaluation. It is crucial to remember, however, that these are only instances. Hazards and preventative measures differ from one organisation to the next, thus you won't be able to replicate any of these for your own COSHH risk assessment. They exist solely to serve as a guide to show how your risk assessment could look and what you may be legally required to include.
The wellbeing of your employees should be your top priority in all aspects of health and safety. It is not only a legal necessity, but businesses also have a moral commitment to keep their employees safe and healthy. Adequate COSHH control methods can ensure that your employees are not exposed to hazardous compounds utilised in your processes.
Because the impacts of hazardous substance exposure are not often immediately obvious, a proactive COSHH policy is required from the start to ensure that your employees are safeguarded. A fit and healthy workforce will reduce the number of lost working days in your company, save on staff absence costs, and boost output levels.
It is no secret that a productive staff is one that feels important and valuable. Adopting thorough COSHH compliance strategies can help indicate to your employees that you value their safety and well-being at work.
Employees who feel protected from the hazards of hazardous substances can then carry out their activities with total faith that their employers have implemented the appropriate COSHH control measures to make their working environment comfortable and safe.
In today's digital age, news and information can be accessed instantly from practically any location, implying that word spreads quickly. If a COSHH-related incident occurs at your company and an employee is injured as a result, businesses across the country will quickly become aware. This will harm your company's reputation, discouraging businesses and future employees from cooperating with you and negatively impacting your business's performance and longevity.
Following the implementation of the new sentencing criteria in February 2016, the HSE has raised the severity of the fines it imposes on enterprises for inadequate health and safety standards. Sanctions are now directly related to the organization's turnover, which means that larger organisations could face fines of millions of pounds for significant violations.
When the new procedure was implemented, 38 fines of £500,000 or more have been issued, with one case exceeding the maximum £5 million penalty. These severe penalties were enacted to ensure that large corporations take health and safety more seriously, and they apply to all sorts of malpractice, including COSHH. Because of the severity of these fines, a COSHH accident or incident can have serious financial consequences for a business.
Having a proactive COSHH policy in place can also provide you an advantage when competing for new contracts, with businesses today seeing successful health and safety management as a competitive advantage. Furthermore, the reduction in the number of missing days as a result of a protected and appreciated personnel will save your organisation significant resources that can be re-invested in other areas of the business to further improve commercial performance.
Having an effective and strong COSHH plan in place provides numerous benefits, all of which add up to provide you a competitive advantage. Following to COSHH legislation allows you to keep your employees safe, increase productivity, and maintain and improve your company's reputation.
A widespread misperception is that a risk assessment is merely identifying a substance's dangerous features; however, this is not the case. A COSHH risk assessment is intended to establish specific controls for the use of a substance that are tailored to the specific usage of a material by a company. A COSHH evaluation is used to ensure that control mechanisms are in place to avoid or control exposure to hazardous substances. In practise, a risk assessment will show that appropriate judgement was used to arrive at conclusions.
The COSHH evaluation comprises critical information about the health and safety concerns posed by chemicals/substances, as well as the necessary exposure control measures, first aid needs, spillage containment, and safe disposal requirements. This information is then used by the competent COSHH person so that they have the facts they need to avoid and regulate exposure to these dangers.
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