10,300 reasons you must carry out a risk assessment if your employees use chemicals

Avoid costly accidents with a COSHH risk assessment

Picture the scene: a worker is doing a job that is undertaken every day in your company. Cleaning. They are using a chemical, which others have always used to do this job. Half an hour later, you find the employee collapsed in a pool of the chemical. Hospital treatment is needed for chemical burns.

This is exactly what happened to an employee at Humber Fabrications (Hull) Ltd. It cost the company £10,300 in fines and a further £2,214.10 in costs. They may have escaped lightly, for what led to the workplace accident was a catalogue of health and safety errors. In this article, you’ll learn how you can avoid a similar outcome by carrying out a COSHH risk assessment.

Five health and safety mistakes that could be easily avoided

The employee at the company had been tasked with cleaning a boat deck. He had been provided with a solvent called dichloromethane to do the job, soaking a cloth with it and wiping the deck clean. After a while, the worker felt light-headed and took a break.

Upon his return, the worker continued cleaning and subsequently collapsed. He wasn’t found until some time later – lying in a pool of the solvent. An ambulance was called, and he was treated for chemical burns at Hull Royal Infirmary.

An HSE investigation found the company had made five health and safety mistakes that caused the accident. The company failed to:

1. Provide suitable control measures for when employees used dichloromethane
2. Provide local exhaust ventilation
3. Provide suitable respiratory protection or personal protective equipment
4. Provide adequate instruction and training to employees who use dichloromethane
5. Carry out an adequate risk assessment for the use of dichloromethane for cleaning boats

Why a COSHH risk assessment must be your starting point

Reviewing the list of health and safety errors above, the first four could easily have been avoided if only the company had carried out an adequate risk assessment. Like all companies (including yours), it is subject to the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations, as well as a host of other chemical-related legislation.

A COSHH risk assessment would have identified the:

• Equipment needed to reduce and control risk (ventilation, etc.)
• Working practices required to reduce risk (supervision, training, emergency procedures, etc.)
• Behaviours required to effectively use control equipment and working practices (wearing personal protective equipment, reporting of hazards, etc.)

What does a COSHH risk assessment achieve?

When you carry out a COSHH risk assessment, you will:

• Understand the specific risks of the chemicals used in your workplace
• Be able to evaluate the health risks caused by the chemicals and how they are used
• Make better decisions on how to comply with the COSHH regulations

An adequate risk assessment would have provided Humber Fabrications with the knowledge needed to properly train its employees, control the risks with environmental measures, and ensure that suitable PPE was used. It’s an accident and fine that could easily have been avoided.

Ultimately, what the company probably needed to do was to hire a consultant to conduct a COSHH risk assessment. The accident provided a human reason it should have done so. The court gave it a further 10,300 reasons.

Avoid the same mistake. For an independent risk assessment carried out by qualified and experienced health and safety consultants, contact Integral Safety Management today.