What Is a COSHH Assessment?
A COSHH assessment is a risk assessment that looks only at harm to health from substances: chemicals, dusts, fumes, vapours, mists, gases and germs. It is required by regulation 6 of the COSHH Regulations 2002, and the rule is simple: no work that could expose your employees until the assessment is done and the steps it identifies are in place.
The HSE’s guidance makes a point that catches a lot of people out. Health hazards are not limited to products labelled as hazardous. Wood dust from sanding, silica dust from tile cutting and fume from welding are all created by the work, not bought in a bottle, and all need assessing. For the wider picture of the law, start with our guide to what COSHH is.
Our free template below has a section for every part of the assessment, plus a worked example for a bleach-based cleaner.
Free template
COSHH Assessment Template
A free, editable COSHH assessment template for UK employers and supervisors: one form per hazardous substance or task, with a worked example for a bleach-based cleaner.
Preview
How to use this template
- Complete one assessment for each hazardous substance, or for each task that creates one (such as sanding, welding or cutting stone). Assess the task, not just the product.
- Start with the product label and the safety data sheet (SDS). Sections 2, 7, 8 and 13 of the SDS give you most of what you need. If you do not have an SDS, ask the supplier.
- Talk to the people who actually do the job. They know how often, how much and where.
- Work through the hierarchy of control: eliminate or substitute first, then engineering controls and extraction, then safe systems of work, and PPE last, in addition to the other controls.
- If you have five or more employees, the law requires you to record the significant findings and the steps you have taken to control exposure. Keep the assessment where staff and safety representatives can see it.
- Review it regularly (a yearly review date suits most workplaces), and straight away if the product, the process, the quantities or the people change, or after a spill, a near miss or a health complaint.
- The worked example at the end is illustrative only. Copy the hazard information from your own product's label and SDS, because formulations differ.
1. Assessment details
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Organisation | |
| Site / location | |
| Department / area | |
| Assessment reference number |
+ 3 more rows in the full template
Also in the full template
- 2. Substance details
- 3. Task and exposure
- 4. Existing controls
- 5. Risk rating with existing controls
- 6. Further controls needed
- 7. Personal protective equipment (PPE)
- 8. Storage and disposal
- 9. Emergency and first aid
- 10. Monitoring and health surveillance
- 11. Sign-off and review
- Worked example: bleach-based toilet cleaner
Do You Need a COSHH Assessment?
If your work could expose anyone to a substance hazardous to health, yes. Size is no exemption: a two-person cleaning firm has the same duty as a factory.
What changes with size is the paperwork. With five or more employees you must record the significant findings and the steps you have taken to control exposure. With fewer, the assessment is still required, and the HSE says it makes sense to write it down anyway.
The person using the product needs to understand the assessment too. That is regulation 12, and it is what COSHH training is for.
How to Do a COSHH Assessment, Step by Step
The HSE frames COSHH assessment around its familiar steps: identify the hazards, assess the risks, control them, record and review. Here is how that works in practice, in eight steps.
Step 1: List the Substances and Processes
Walk round and list every product used, stored or made on site. Then add what the work creates: dust from cutting or sanding, fume from welding, vapour from heating, mist from spraying. Include biological agents where relevant, such as body fluids in care. This list becomes your COSHH register.
Step 2: Gather the Safety Data Sheets and COSHH Essentials Sheets
Get the current safety data sheet for every supplied product. Suppliers must provide one for chemicals that are dangerous for supply, so ask if you are missing any. Sections 2 (hazards) and 8 (exposure controls and PPE) do most of the work. Our guide to COSHH symbols explains the pictograms and hazard statements you will find there.
For dusts and fumes there is no data sheet, so use the HSE’s free COSHH essentials sheets. They give task-by-task control advice for welding, woodworking, silica, motor vehicle repair, printing, agriculture and more. Following all the points on a sheet, or using equally effective measures, is a sound basis for your controls.
Step 3: Work Out Who Is Exposed and How
For each substance or task, note who could be exposed and by which route: breathing it in, skin or eye contact, or swallowing it. Then note how often, for how long and in what quantities. Do not forget cleaners, maintenance workers, contractors and visitors. Regulation 6 specifically asks you to think about activities like maintenance, where exposure can be much higher than in normal work.
Step 4: Evaluate the Risk
How harmful is the substance, how much exposure is there, and do the current controls actually work? Check against any workplace exposure limit; a substance without one is not automatically safe. If several products are used together, consider them in combination. A simple low, medium or high rating is enough for most workplaces; our guide to the risk assessment matrix explains a more detailed approach.
Step 5: Decide the Controls
Regulation 7 sets the order. First prevent exposure, preferably by substitution: a safer product, a less dusty form, a different process. If that is not reasonably practicable, control it, in this order of priority:
- suitable work processes, systems, engineering controls and equipment
- control at source, including adequate ventilation such as local exhaust ventilation (LEV), and organisational measures
- suitable PPE, in addition to the measures above, where adequate control cannot be achieved by other means
Control only counts as adequate if you apply the eight principles of good practice in Schedule 2A, stay below any WEL, and, for substances that can cause cancer, genetic damage or asthma, reduce exposure as low as is reasonably practicable.
Step 6: Record Your Findings
Write down the significant findings and the controls, using the template above. Keep it short enough that the people doing the task will read it.
Step 7: Act on It
An assessment in a folder protects no one. Give each action an owner and a date, brief the team, and check the controls are used. Regulation 6 is only met once the steps are implemented.
Step 8: Review It
Regulation 6(3) requires a review regularly, and straight away if you suspect the assessment is no longer valid, if the work has changed significantly, or if exposure monitoring shows it is needed. The HSE adds changes of staff, process, substances or equipment, problems your workers spot, and accidents or near misses. The law sets no fixed interval, so put a review date on the form and stick to it.
A Worked Example: Sanding in a Joinery Workshop
The template’s own example covers a cleaning product. Here is one for a substance the work creates, using HSE guidance on wood dust and COSHH essentials sheet WD7 for hand-held sanders. It is illustrative only: your workshop, timber and equipment will differ.
| Section | Example entry |
|---|---|
| Task | Two joiners sanding oak and MDF with random-orbit sanders, about two hours a day each. |
| Hazard | Wood dust can cause asthma and dermatitis; hardwood dust can cause nasal cancer. Hardwood dust is listed as a carcinogen in Schedule 1 of COSHH. WELs: hardwood 3 mg/m³, softwood 5 mg/m³ (8-hour average). For mixed dust, the hardwood limit applies to all of it. |
| Exposure | Breathing in fine dust during sanding, and when sweeping up and emptying the extractor. |
| Existing controls | Sanders have dust bags only. Floor swept at the end of the day. Disposable masks available but not always worn. |
| Risk | High. Powered sanding produces high dust levels, sweeping puts settled dust back in the air, and exposure to a carcinogen must be as low as reasonably practicable. |
| Further controls | Cut parts more accurately to reduce sanding. Fit on-tool extraction with a Class M or H extractor. Clean with a Class M vacuum, never a brush or compressed air. Supervisor, within two weeks. |
| RPE | RPE with an assigned protection factor of at least 20, and a powered respirator for sanding continuously for more than an hour. Tight-fitting masks face-fit tested, wearers clean shaven. |
| Maintenance | Thorough examination and test of the extraction at least every 14 months by a competent person; keep records for at least five years. |
| Health surveillance | Respiratory questionnaire and spirometry, arranged with an occupational health provider, usually annually. |
| Review | In 12 months, or sooner if the timber, machines or staff change, or anyone reports chest or skin symptoms. |
Note that wood dust is also a fire and explosion risk, which is dealt with under separate regulations (DSEAR), not COSHH.
Photo: Anna Evans on Unsplash
Common COSHH Assessment Mistakes
- Assessing the bottle, not the task. The same product is a different risk on a mop than decanted from a drum.
- Forgetting what the work creates. Dust, fume and vapour have no label, so they get missed.
- Copying the safety data sheet. The HSE is clear that an SDS is not a risk assessment. It describes the product; you describe how your people use it.
- Jumping straight to PPE. Gloves and masks are the last line, used alongside other controls, not instead of them.
- Never reviewing it. A new supplier, a new product or a new starter can make last year’s assessment wrong.
What to Do Next
This week, pick the task in your business with the most dust, fume or chemical use. Download the template, gather the safety data sheets or the right COSHH essentials sheet, and complete one assessment with the people who do the job. Then read our plain-English guide to the COSHH Regulations 2002 to see what else the law expects.
When the assessment is done, make sure your team understands it. Our COSHH training runs live online for teams, on-site on request, or as a CPD-accredited e-learning course for individuals.