Posted By Raymond Rapp Robert Don't know how much work it involves but have you considered using a contractor for COSHH Assessments? For example, Sypol have a very good system for producing easy to understand COSHH Assessment, subscription is not cheap. Ray

Posted By Peter Zunda Robert, sent you an email with a bit of info that may help. Peter.

Posted By Kenneth Patrick Robert, Why not start with the new HSE webpage. It even points out under "Which substances can be harmful?" that wet working can cause dermatitis. Chris P has often highlighted this to us on the forum

Posted By Chris Packham Risk assessment for skin exposure is not as simple as many assume. Just one example of why: The most common form of occupational skin disease is irritant contact dermatitis. This is almost always a chronic condition, i.e. builds over a long time, possibly years, and is the result of repeated exposures to many different chemicals, many of which will not have risk phrases and probably therefore will not even be on the safety data sheet. The cumulative damage is asymptomatic, i.e. you will see and feel nothing until the damaged skin is very close to breaking into clinical dermatitis. So simply taking one task and assessing this on its own may not indicate sufficient exposure to cause concern. However, if the worker then carries out other tasks, each with a low level of exposure to even a mild irritant, whilst no task on its own will cause concern, the cumulative effect, over time, could result in contact dermatitis. Bear in mind that the same skin will be exposed to irritants away from the workplace and these can contribute to the cumulative effect. Although the damage is asymptomatic, it is possible using what are termed skin bioengineering techniques to identify sub-clinical damage so that skin health surveillance can be used to prevent the damage accumulating with the resultant dermatitis. This is just one of the factors that make risk assessment complex. There are several others, but space on this forum is limited! Chris Chris

Posted By robert9 Thanks for all the responses. I think it's fair to say that COSHH isn't a simple as many people seem to think!

Posted By garyh This question re methodology for COSHH has been covered many times before (search threads?) - What are the hazards (eg risk phrases etc) - What is the form of the material - How is it used - Who is exposed - What are the routes of exposure - What is exposure of workers v any WEL etc - What are existing controls? Good enough? - Monitoring, if neccesary etc One point to watch out for. Don't get too carried away by the "contains XXX". Look at the classification of the overall mixture (known as a "preparation" in COSHH). This misunderstanding causes a lot of problems, with over exaggeration of risk. For instance, just because it contains a carcinogen, does not make it carcinogenic. It may be classified as eg harmful. This is determined by the rules for classification taking into account the concentrations and so on. Hope this helps.

Posted By robert9 Garyh, thanks for that constructive response, very helpful.