Is COSHH training a legal requirement?
Regulation 12 of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 requires employers to give employees who may be exposed to hazardous substances suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training. The duty is on the employer, and no specific certificate is named in the regulations, so a training record is how most businesses evidence it to an HSE inspector.
The other duties in COSHH sit on top of that one. Training without an assessment, or an assessment nobody has read, satisfies neither.
What counts as a substance hazardous to health?
Chemicals and products containing chemicals, fumes, dusts, vapours, mists, gases and biological agents such as bacteria used or generated at work. Cleaning chemicals, oven degreaser, sanitiser, descaler, flour dust in a bakery and wood dust in a workshop all sit inside COSHH.
Asbestos, lead and radioactive substances are outside it. Each has its own set of regulations, which is why an asbestos brief never belongs in a COSHH file.
What does COSHH training cover?
Seven modules across 2-3 hours: the COSHH Regulations 2002, types of hazardous substance and the health effects they cause, the risk assessment process, workplace exposure limits and monitoring, control measures and PPE, safe storage, handling and disposal, and health surveillance with record keeping.
Health effects run from immediate skin irritation and burns through to occupational asthma and long-latency disease, which is the reason exposure that feels harmless on the day still gets controlled.
How do you carry out a COSHH assessment?
List the substances actually in use, read the safety data sheet for each, work out who is exposed and how (breathing it, skin contact, swallowing it, injection), then decide the controls. Regulation 7 puts prevention first: remove the substance or substitute a safer one, then control exposure at source with ventilation or enclosure, and treat PPE as the last line rather than the first answer.
Record the assessment, tell the people doing the work what it says, and review it when the substance, the process or the workforce changes.
Who needs COSHH training?
Cleaners, laboratory staff, hairdressers, manufacturing operatives, warehouse workers, healthcare staff and anyone else who works with or near chemicals, dust, fumes or biological agents. Kitchen and bar teams are frequently missed off the list, despite handling concentrated degreaser, descaler and sanitiser on every shift.
Our COSHH awareness guide covers what an assessment looks like in a hospitality setting if you want the detail before enrolling.
