The paperwork under COSHH comes in three layers and mixing them up is the commonest failing. The supplier gives you a safety data sheet, which is information about the substance. You write an assessment, which is a decision about the way YOU use it here. And where somebody is engaged to review the whole picture you get a report, which collects the assessments, the inventory and the gaps into one document. A folder of data sheets is none of those things, however thick it is.
What a COSHH report contains, and who it is written for
A report is written for whoever has to act on it, usually the employer and their insurer, so it opens with what was looked at and what was left out. Then the inventory: every hazardous substance held or generated, including the ones nobody buys, which is where dust, fume, flour, solder fume, engine exhaust and legionella live. Each entry names the work it is used in, the route by which somebody could be exposed, the control in place and whether that control is adequate. After that the actions, prioritised and dated, and any monitoring or health surveillance the regulations trigger. The part that earns the fee is the inventory of substances GENERATED by the process, because those have no data sheet and no supplier to explain them.
COSHH examples, taken from the substances a small business actually holds
Bleach and other cleaning chemicals in a kitchen, decanted into unlabelled spray bottles, which is its own finding. Cement and plaster on a building job, where the hazard is wet cement burns and the dust from cutting. Wood dust in a joinery shop, hardwood dust in particular. Welding fume, which is now treated as a carcinogen and needs extraction whatever the duration. Flour and improver dust in a bakery. Diesel exhaust where a vehicle runs indoors. Solvent based adhesives and thinners in a bodyshop. Legionella in water systems, which sits under COSHH as well as the general duties. The assessment for each is short; what makes it real is naming the one control that reduces exposure rather than listing four that do not.
A COSHH assessment for petrol, and why the quantity changes the answer
Petrol is flammable and it is also harmful to health, so two sets of regulations reach it and an assessment that covers only the fire risk is half done. For health the routes are vapour inhalation while decanting or refuelling and skin contact when it is used, wrongly, as a cleaner. The controls are decanting outdoors or in a well ventilated place away from ignition, a proper container with a closure, gloves that resist hydrocarbons rather than the thin blue ones, and an absolute prohibition on using it to clean anything. Quantity then decides what else applies: a jerry can for a mower is one thing, a drum or a bulk tank brings storage separation, bunding, a dangerous substances assessment for the explosive atmosphere and, past the thresholds, licensing. Write down the quantity you actually keep, because the assessment is only true at that quantity.
COSHH employees responsibilities, which are narrower than most people think
The duty to assess and to provide controls is the employer's and cannot be handed down. What employees must do is use the controls provided in the way they were trained to, wear what is issued, report any defect in a control or any accidental release, attend health surveillance where it applies, and not interfere with anything provided for safety. That is the whole of it. If the extraction is switched off because it is noisy, if the gloves were the wrong type, or if nobody was ever shown the data sheet, the failing is the employer's, and an assessment that assigns responsibility to staff for controls they were never given is evidence against the business rather than for it.
A COSHH sheet example, read against the safety data sheet it came from
Take a sheet for a drain cleaner. The data sheet gives the classification, the hazard statements, the exposure limits and the emergency information, and it is generic to the product. Your sheet takes those and answers the questions the data sheet cannot: who uses it here, how much at a time, in what space, for how long, by what route they could be exposed, what stops that, what happens when it spills, and where the eyewash is. Where the data sheet says use appropriate protective gloves, your sheet names the glove. Where it gives a workplace exposure limit, your sheet says whether the way it is used here could approach it and, if the answer is not obviously no, whether monitoring is needed. A COSHH sheet that repeats the data sheet has added nothing.
A COSHH form example, and the two columns that carry the decision
Any layout will do and the regulator does not prescribe one. Whatever the form, two columns decide whether it is worth anything. The first is the exposure route with the task named, because bleach poured into a bucket and bleach sprayed at head height are different assessments of the same product. The second is the control, written as the thing that actually reduces exposure and ranked in the order the law asks for: eliminate the substance, substitute a less hazardous one, enclose the process, extract at source, reduce the number of people and the time, and only then protective equipment. A form whose control column says PPE on every line has skipped five steps and recorded the fact.
Running a COSHH toolbox talk that changes what people do
Ten minutes, one substance, in the place it is used, with the container in your hand. Show the label and what the pictograms mean, say what it does to a person and by which route, show the control and prove it works, then cover the two things people get wrong with this product specifically, which is usually decanting and mixing. Finish with what to do if it goes on skin or in an eye and where the nearest eyewash is, and have somebody else say it back. Record the date, the substance and who attended. A talk that covers the whole COSHH folder in one session is a talk nobody remembers.
A COSHH data sheets template is not an assessment, and the difference matters
Templates for collecting data sheets are useful housekeeping: a register of every product, its supplier, the date of the sheet you hold and where it is filed. Keep it, because an out of date sheet for a reformulated product is a real problem. But the register is not the assessment and cannot be offered as one. The test an inspector applies is whether there is a decision about YOUR use of each substance, and a register of sheets answers no question about the work. Where a template does help is the inventory column, because filling it honestly usually turns up two or three substances nobody had assessed at all.
What is a COSHH risk assessment, against the general one
It is the same legal duty to assess, narrowed to substances hazardous to health and made more specific by its own regulations. The general assessment covers the activity, the substance assessment covers exposure. They are written separately because the substance assessment has to reach things a general one never asks: the route of exposure, the exposure limit where one exists, the hierarchy of control, the adequacy and the testing of any extraction, and whether health surveillance is triggered. A general assessment with a line saying chemicals are used and gloves are worn has not discharged COSHH, and that single line is the most common version of the failure.
Questions people ask about COSHH report
Does every substance need its own assessment?
Every hazardous one whose use could expose somebody, but assessments can be grouped where the use and the controls are genuinely the same, which is normal for a range of similar cleaning products. Grouping is a judgement you have to be able to explain: same hazard classification, same route, same control, same task. Where one product in the group is used differently, for instance sprayed rather than wiped, it comes out of the group and gets its own.
Do substances the process creates count, when nothing was bought?
Yes, and they are the ones most often missed because there is no data sheet to file. Dust from cutting, sanding or sweeping, fume from welding or soldering, mist from machining fluid, exhaust from an engine run indoors, and biological agents in water systems or waste are all covered. Since no supplier will tell you about them, the assessment has to start from the work itself, which is why walking the job matters more than reading the folder.
How long should a COSHH assessment be kept?
Keep the current one for as long as the substance is in use, and keep superseded versions, because exposure questions arrive years later. Where health surveillance or exposure monitoring applies, the records have their own retention periods set by the regulations and run far longer than the assessment itself. A practical rule is that anything evidencing what somebody was exposed to, and to how much, is kept rather than tidied away.
Does COSHH cover asbestos, lead or radiation?
No. Those three have their own regulations and are excluded from COSHH precisely so that the stricter duties apply. If asbestos is present the control of asbestos regulations govern the work, including the survey, the licensing question and the notification, and a COSHH assessment mentioning asbestos dust is not a substitute for any of it.