Everything You Should Know About COSHH Risk Assessment for Cleaning

One of the most important certificates in the commercial cleaning industry is COSHH. Adhering to COSHH regulations is a part of Health & Safety and is necessary for all commercial cleaning companies, regardless of the type of cleaning service they provide. As a business manager looking for a cleaning service for your office or retail store, you may ask what COSHH is and why it’s important.

In this article, we will explore COSHH and its risk assessment in detail.

What is COSHH?

COSHH stands for Control of Substances Hazardous to Health. It is a certificate which is a part of Health & Safety regulations. COSHH is a set of regulations to protect workers and staff against hazardous materials and substances they may exposed to in their work setting. It controls the exposure of hazardous materials using risk assessment which focuses on the following:

• Where exposure to hazardous substances is potential.
• How exposure may happen.
• How duties and jobs may lead to exposure.
• Concerns surrounding the exposure to such substances.

COSHH in the UK is a serious regulation. The laws surrounding COSHH had been in place for over 25 years. If employers or employees break these regulations, it is considered a serious crime and is punishable by fines.

COSHH in Cleaning

Commercial cleaning companies should attain a COSHH certificate and run COSHH risk assessments regularly for two main reasons:

First, exposure to hazardous substances may occur during cleaning. Strong cleaning solutions, such as bleach, ammonia or descalers may pose an injury risk if they come in contact with the skin. Also, exposure to fumes resulting from such cleaning solutions is harmful and should be controlled using COSHH risk assessments.

Second, cleaning certain premises, such as industrial plants or workshops, may involve potential exposure to hazardous materials and substances. Therefore, cleaning staff should be trained for COSHH while employers or managers regularly carry out risk assessments.

These are to ensure cleaning staff are safe when working and cleaning using specific cleaning solutions that might be dangerous for their health.

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COSHH Signs & Symbols

One of the important parts of training cleaning staff for COSHH regulations is to inform them about hazard signs and symbols. The following signs are the most important symbols in COSHH for cleaning:

Explosive _{^{(Symbol: Exploding Bomb)}}

Flammable _{^{(Symbol: Flame)}}

Oxidising _{^{(Symbol: Flame Over Circle)}}

Corrosive _{^{(Symbol: Corrosion)}}

Acute Toxicity_{^{(Symbol: Skull & Crossbones)}}

Hazardous to The Environment _{^{(Symbol: Environment)}}

Health Hazard / Hazard to Ozone Layer _{^{(Symbol: Exclamation Mark)}}

Serious Health Hazard _{^{(Symbol: Health Hazard)}}

Gas Under Pressure _{^{(Symbol: Gas Cylinder)}}

* Source

Read More: Essential Office Cleaning Signage

How to Carry Out a COSHH Risk Assessment?

The main purpose and importance of COSHH is its risk assessment. To carry out a COSHH risk assessment, you have to identify hazards, assess the risks, control the risk and provide reports. Also, it includes regular review, which, in simpler words, is the regular risk assessment.

Identifying Hazardous Substances

First, we have to identify the hazardous substances. COSHH covers a lot of substances and considers them as hazards to employees and staff. They are as follows:

• Chemicals (including products & solutions that contain chemicals)
• Fumes and vapours (including welding fume)
• Dust and airborne particles (including wood, silica and sandblast dust)
• Mists (including concentrated cleaning sprays)
• Gases (asphyxiating or otherwise)
• Nanotechnology and nanoparticles
• Biological agents (germs, viruses bacterial)

Keep in mind that COSHH doesn’t cover the following substances:

• Lead
• Asbestos
• Radioactive materials

These substances have dedicated regulations due to their extremely harmful and hazardous nature.

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Assessing The Risks

Next, we have to assess the risks during the cleaning process. This mainly includes who might be harmed and how it might happen.

Assessing the risks in a premises includes considering the following items:

• How exposure to hazardous substances may happen.
• The effects of exposure to hazardous substances.
• How often do staff use cleaning solutions with hazardous chemicals?
• How long do staff work in places where there is a risk of exposure to hazardous substances? (to measure against WEL or Workplace Exposure Limits)
• Who else might be at risk of exposure to hazardous substances? (This includes staff, employees or other people like clients or customers)
• What is being done to control the risks?
• Further actions to control the risks.
• People responsible for carrying out risk control actions.
• When risk control actions should be done.

Controlling The Risks

After assessing the potential risks, you should take the next step, which is controlling them. In COSHH, controlling risks involves the following steps:

• Elimination: This includes avoiding or replacing hazardous cleaning solutions with other alternatives if possible.
• Changing the Process: This includes changing the room humidity to stop dust when cleaning or changing the temperature when using cleaning solutions that produce hazardous vapours.
• Containment: This involves a set of actions including enclosing the space to prevent hazardous substances from leaking out, minimising the handling of materials and providing proper ventilation and exhaust in environments with hazardous dust, fume, mist, gasses and vapours.
• Cleaning Equipment: Using correct cleaning equipment and cleaning practices to minimise the risk of producing hazardous substances. For example, vacuuming instead of sweeping to minimise the amount of dust. Also, are cleaning equipment correctly colour-coded based on the area they are being used in?
• Personal Protective Equipment: Use proper PPEs or Personal Protective Equipment such as gloves, safety glasses, masks and work clothing.
• Training: Inform and provide COSHH training to cleaning staff, employees and others via training courses, brochures and informational posters.

Record & Review

The last step is to record the risk assessment results and review the assessment regularly. Regardless of the number of employees in your office, recording COSHH risk assessments would help. However, you can provide steps to COSHH risk assessment if you have less than 5 employees.

Recording COSHH risk assessment includes writing the previously-mentioned steps to inform cleaning staff and other employees in the office about. On the other hand, reviewing risk assessment is to regularly assess the previous steps and update them if needed.

COSHH Responsibilities

COSHH regulations assign several responsibilities to the people in charge. Both employers and employees or staff should be aware of these responsibilities and follow them to ensure their and other’s safety.

Employer Responsibilities

Employers, managers, HRs or others in charge of COSHH and Health & Safety regulations have the following responsibilities:

• Preventing or controlling exposure to hazardous materials and substances.
• Ensuring sufficient and effective control measures are in place. Also, keep these control measures up to date and review them regularly.
• Provide training and instructions to inform employees and staff of COSHH and hazardous materials and substances.
• Implementing procedures to handle accidents and emergencies related to hazardous substances.
• Monitoring staff and employees who are working with hazardous substances or in places where there is a risk of exposure to such materials.
• Carrying out COSHH risk assessments as well as recording and reviewing them regularly.
• Ensuring the use or exposure to hazardous materials doesn’t exceed the Workplace Exposure (WEL) limits.
• Supervising employees and staff to ensure they adhere to COSHH regulations and carry out their responsibilities correctly.

Employee Responsibilities

On the other hand, employees and cleaning staff also have specific responsibilities concerning COSHH regulations. These responsibilities are assigned to ensure safety while working. They are as follows:

• Assisting their coworkers and working in a collective to follow COSHH regulations and create a safe working environment.
• Following the COSHH procedures and instructions closely to eliminate the risk of exposure to hazardous substances, accidents and injuries.
• Wearing proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as well as ensuring they are used and stored correctly to prevent damages.
• Reporting and recording any accident, leakage, spillage or damage that might pose a risk of exposure to hazardous substances.
• Attending regular medical check-ups.
• Following cleaning and showering instructions to eliminate the spread of hazardous substances to other places after finishing work.
• Attending training courses and keeping up to date with new instructions and procedures provided by employers.

Conclusion

COSHH stands for Control of Substances Hazardous to Health and it is a must-have certificate for all commercial cleaning companies. COSHH regulations are in place to ensure the safety of employees, staff and other people in the workplace and eliminate or control the risk of exposure to hazardous substances and materials. In this article, we explored COSHH regulations and risk assessment procedures in full and provided information on different COSHH-related signs and symbols. Also, we discussed how to carry out COSHH risk assessment and what responsibilities employers and employees have toward COSHH regulations.

The information provided in this article will help you realise the importance of COSHH in the workplace and why commercial cleaning companies should hold this certificate if they want to provide cleaning services in your workplace. Also, this article helps you carry out COSHH risk assessment and ensure safety in your work environment.