How to Determine Who Will Carry Out Your CoSHH Risk Assessment.
When it has been determined that hazardous substances are present in your workplace, the first step to take in carrying out a CoSHH risk assessment is to decide who is going to carry out the assessment. Employers have a legal responsibility to comply with CoSHH Regulations and to control hazardous substances at work so as not to detriment the health of their employees.
The smaller your business is, and the fewer risks there are, the less likely it is that many people will need to be closely involved in the whole process. This is due to the fact that there is not as much need for technical expertise in occupational hygiene and therefore the CoSHH assessment procedure is not as rigorous. However, regardless of how small your company is, it is important to remember that serious or difficult risks can still occur.
Larger organisations will require more people to be involved in the CoSHH assessment process, as issues become more complex and varied. This is because more work is required and also the variety of situations will require various different skills and CoSHH knowledge.
As the numbers involved in the CoSHH assessment increase, so does the need for CoSHH management of their work. Whoever is responsible for the CoSHH assessment process should clearly identify individual responsibilities.
If there are a large number of CoSHH assessments, many employers find that using a combination of a central coordinating CoSHH body and teams which report back to it with observations and recommendations, works particularly well. The central body can be responsible for selecting capable team members, giving CoSHH guidance to ensure that teams are looking for the right things, monitoring recommendations and providing a source of occupational hygiene expertise.
It is important to remember that employers need to involve their employees in the CoSHH assessment process. Employers need to look to their employees as to how they do their job as this information will be crucial in completing an accurate CoSHH assessment.
Employee participation can be on an individual or representative basis, but particularly with larger organisations, representatives would usually be more appropriate.
If safety representatives appointed by recognised trade unions are present in your organisation, then as an employer it is your duty to notify them of any arrangements in relation to the health of employees and on checking the effectiveness of those measures. This includes consultation on the matters covered by CoSHH. If employees are not covered by health and safety representatives then they must be kept informed of employee safety according to the Health and Safety Regulations 1996 via elected representatives.
About the Author
Dale Allen delivers CoSHH compliance as one of the UK's leading compliance authorities. Find out more about how you can use his online COSHH365 CoSHH asssessment tool to produce compliant CoSHH assessments with the benefits of a managed Safety Data Sheet library, available at: => http://www.coshh365.com/
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