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Guides to the paperwork, written plainly
What the regulations actually require, what a good record contains, and where a free tool will do the part that takes longest. No account, nothing gated, and every figure carries the published source it came from.
Start hereWhat is COSHH?COSHH stands for the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. They require an employer to find out what hazardous substances the work involves, decide how people could be harmed by them, and either prevent that exposure or control it — before the work starts, and in writing where five or more people are employed.
COSHH, in nine parts
- What is a COSHH assessment, and how do you do one?A COSHH assessment is the record of a decision: what hazardous substances this work involves, who could be exposed and by what route, and what is being done to prevent or control that exposure. It is required before the work starts, and where five or more people are employed its significant findings must be written down.
- COSHH assessment template: what belongs in each partThere is no official COSHH assessment form. The regulations require the significant findings to be recorded where five or more people are employed, and leave the shape to you — which is why every template you find looks slightly different and why they are all, in principle, acceptable.
- COSHH symbols: the nine hazard pictograms and what each one meansThere are nine hazard pictograms — the red diamonds on a label. They are not COSHH symbols as such: they come from the CLP Regulation, which governs how substances are classified and labelled, and COSHH is what you have to do about them once you know.
- Safety data sheets: which sections a COSHH assessment actually needsA safety data sheet has sixteen sections, in a fixed order set by law. For a COSHH assessment, four of them do most of the work — sections 2, 8, 3 and 7 — and the rest are reference for when something goes wrong.
- The COSHH Regulations 2002: what they say, regulation by regulationThe COSHH Regulations 2002 are a statutory instrument — SI 2002/2677 — made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and amended several times since. They run to twenty-three regulations and a set of schedules; about eight of them carry the duties a working firm meets week to week.
- COSHH training: what the law requires, and how you prove it happenedCOSHH does not require a certificate. Regulation 12 requires that the people exposed are given suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training — what the risks are, what the precautions are, and how to use them — and that an employer can show it happened.
- Storing hazardous substances: what the regulations requireCOSHH does not prescribe a cabinet, a colour or a lock. It requires that exposure is prevented or adequately controlled — and storage is one of the places that duty lands, alongside regulation 7's control measures and regulation 13's arrangements for spills and leaks.
- What is a COSHH register, and what goes in one?A COSHH register is the list of every hazardous substance the firm actually uses, with the assessment and the safety data sheet held against each one. The regulations do not name it or require it by that name — it is the practical answer to a duty that is otherwise impossible to keep on top of.
- Free toolCOSHH hazard lookupType what is on site and read its hazards, exposure limit and whether an assessment covers it.
How these are written
- Every regulation is named with its year and linked to the published text.
- Every figure carries its source and edition — exposure limits from EH40, hazard classifications from the GB Mandatory Classification List.
- Nothing here says a substance is safe, that you are compliant, or that an assessment has been done. These pages explain the duty; the judgement about your work is yours.