What are you COSHH responsibilities as a tradesperson?

What is the meaning of COSHH?

Tradespeople who work with hazardous substances must understand the meaning of COSHH. Know what counts as a hazardous substance can help define what are your COSHH responsibilities.

COSHH stands for the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health.

Knowing about your responsibilities as a tradesperson can help you to avoid harm or ill health.

What are the main health risks from hazardous substances?

Exposure to hazardous substances can cause many types of illness. These can include:

• Skin damage
• Lung disease
• Asthma
• Cancer
• Dizziness
• Eye damage

As these conditions vary in severity, knowing how to handle potentially hazardous substances is essential.

Following the legal requirements are part of your responsibilities as a tradesperson. Compliance means you should be aware of best practices in all areas of health and safety, including the rules around COSHH.

COSHH safety warning symbols

You’re probably already familiar with hazardous substance warning symbols. They are the warning symbols you see on containers and vehicles used for transporting materials.

They include substances that are:

• Corrosive
• Toxic
• Hazardous to the environment
• A health hazard

Other symbols cover substances that are flammable, oxidising, explosive or are meant to reflect gas under pressure.

Although your trade business may not use products with all of these, it is important to know what they mean, especially if you have to provide first aid at work.

Are there penalties if you breach COSHH regulations?

The HSE can impose fines, imprisonment and disqualification if your trade business breaches its health and safety regulations.

There are different levels of fines for different breaches of the regulations based on severity.

Not sure who the HSE are? The Health and Safety Executive are a government body that helps promote safe working environments.

What are the three main regulations of COSHH?

The government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is in charge of COSHH regulations.

It recommends three main regulations of COSHH for trade businesses to consider when managing COSHH.

1. Understand how people may come into contact with hazardous substances: breathing it, ingesting it, absorbing it through the skin
2. Identify potential hazards: people’s health, physical dangers (like fire and explosions), and environmental risks
3. Manage risks properly

Getting the right control procedures in place can help protect your trade business and limit the chance of potential accidents.

What are hazardous substances for tradespeople?

Hazards can be from a range of sources including solids, gases and liquids. These can be fumes and vapours that are hard to notice when breathed in.

It helps if you have a good overall understanding of workplace health and safety risks. Especially in your own trade sector.

For example, there will be different hazards for plumbers than there will be on a construction site.

It is good to get familiar with the UK regulations around safe working practices:

Types of hazards

In trade business, hazardous substances typically include:

• Chemicals
• Products containing chemicals
• Fumes, vapours, and mists
• Dust
• Gases
• Germs and microorganisms

COSHH regulations do NOT cover certain substances. The risks are so great that they have separate regulations:

• Lead
• Asbestos
• Radioactive materials

For example, if you’re thinking of starting an asbestos removal company, there will be a different range of rules you’ll need to know. Standard COSHH regulations cover businesses of all types.

Different hazardous substances for trade businesses

Every trade is different when it comes to using hazardous substances. Here are some typical examples:

• Building, construction, roofing (Dust, chemicals, cement)
• Carpentry and joinery (Dusts, adhesives, strippers, disinfectants, glues, adhesives)
• Cleaning (Corrosive materials, bleach, cleaning agents)
• Gardening and landscaping (Dust, chemicals and toxic gases, pesticides, fertilisers)
• Heating and gas work (Gases, dust, corrosive materials)
• Painting, decorating and tiling (Paints, cleaning fluids)
• Plastering and rendering (Chemicals, paints, cleaning fluids)
• Plumbing (Corrosive materials, chemicals, cleaning fluids, dust)

As an experienced tradesperson, you will no doubt have encountered some or all of these substances.

It is why having the correct PPE and COSHH procedures in place is absolutely crucial. Regardless of whether your trade business is small, medium, larger, or you’re working as a sole trader.

What are your COSHH responsibilities?

Knowing about safe working practices for trade businesses generally is essential. When it comes to handling hazardous substances, HSE recommends that you:

• Assess the risk
• Prevent problems
• Inform staff and make sure you provide proper training and protection

Employers’ responsibilities

• Limit the use of hazardous substances within the HSE’s workplace exposure limits
• Don’t exposure staff to risks from hazardous substances
• Control how hazardous substances are handled
• Set up a process for using hazardous substances
• Train staff on handling and using hazardous substances
• Supervise staff on using hazardous substances
• Keep a check when hazardous substances are in use
• Carry out COSHH risk assessments (see below)

Employees’ responsibilities

• Work safely with hazardous substances
• Make sure your colleagues are kept safe
• Follow your employer’s process for using hazardous substances
• Report incidents and accidents
• Keep up to date on training for using hazardous substances
• Clean yourself and your equipment after using hazardous substances

What is an example of a COSHH register?

Generally speaking, following health and safety guidelines like COSHH helps you operate more effectively. And that should ensure a successful and profitable trade business.

Your COSHH register should record all the hazardous substances your trade business uses.

The benefits of using a register or template include being able to:

• Meet regulations and avoid possible legal actions against your trade business.
• Identify the potential health hazards
• Assess the risks
• Work out how to prevent harm to health
• Provide measures to control hazardous substances
• Set clear instructions and training for staff
• Check that safety measures are being followed

Risk assessment template for COSHH

Creating a risk assessment template for COSHH for your trade business is straightforward. Set one up in Word or Excel or as a PDF file.

Think about your trade and what hazardous substances this might include. Here are some of the questions to ask in your risk assessment template for COSHH:

General info

• Name of substance
• Where it was bought
• Quantity bought
• Date it was bought
• Date it expires

Responsibilities

• Date its risks were assessed
• Name of the person who carried out the risk assessment
• Name of the person responsible for regularly checking and maintaining safety standards
• Where the substance is stored

Risks

• List of potential hazards the substance can cause
• How often people are exposed to the risk
• What it is to be used for
• Who is allowed to use it

Monitoring

• How the use of the hazardous substance is monitored
• How risks are controlled (for example, PPE, training)
• What action to take if hazardous substances cause health or safety problems
• What emergency plans are in place, for example, a spillage of hazardous substances

Work safely and take your business to the next level

Knowing what your COSHH responsibilities are is important to stay in line with workplace regulations. It can gives your trade business a competitive advantage. For example, having a risk assessment template for COSHH shows customers and suppliers you take safety seriously.

By building up your reputation with strong safety principles you can therefore win new business.

At Checkatrade, we only take on the best trades, who have passed our vetting checks. Think you’ve got what it takes? There’s a number of other reasons to consider coming on board:

• Share of existing customer interest and job leads
• Dedicated membership advice team
• Work guarantee up to £1,000
• Exclusive offers and discounts
• Up to 20% off Public Liability Insurance
• Reduced cost of workwear and branding
• Savings on other business essentials such as vans, fuel and materials

Key takeaways

• The meaning of COSHH is the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health regulations
• COSHH seeks to keep company employees and their customers safe
• A risk assessment template for COSHH helps you act professionally, protecting you, your staff and your customers
• Knowing what are your COSHH responsibilities will help you to reduce the risks of accidents or incidents involving hazardous substances
• COSHH registers provide details of the hazardous substances you use, how you use and store them safely and how you make sure staff know how to use them properly
• You could face fines, imprisonment and disqualification if your trade business breaches health and safety regulations