Posted By Stuart Nagle
Bill.

Info immediately to hand on keeping records:

1) Control of asbestos at work Regs - 40 years

2) All risk assessments - review as required,. MHSW Regs 'recommend' keeping risk assessments for 5 years

3) Genetically modifed organisms - at least 10 years GMO(Contained Use) Regs 2000

Hope this asa=sists...no doubt others will chip in too...

Posted By Nigel Hammond
Hi Bill

Do a search for my recent thread on 'Archiving' which I posted in June. You might find some of the replies interesting.

I met our BSI OHSAS 18001 assessor yesterday. He suggested we keep all health & safety records for as long as possible.

I find this whole issue of archiving a pain. Deep down, I suspect you should keep everything forever!

HSE produced a leaflet a few years ago on record keeping which told you how long to keep various types of risk assessments for. However, HSE only seem to be interested in protecting employers form prosecution. Protecting us from litigation is a different matter.

At the moment we have the three year rule with people being able to sue up to three years after awareness of an injury. So for injuries you could say keep all records for just over three years. But what about cumulative injuries?

Chemicals and asbestos are a chronic health risks that can build up over time - so in any court case involving these risks - employers would need to prove they managed the risk throughout the period of exposure. I believe this is why health records have to be kept for over 40 years under COSHH and CAWR.

What about other cumulative/chronic risks? Manual handling is one - the fibres in the discs gradually break over time before the final event that leads to the prolapsed disc. Other chronic risks I can think of would include - noise, upperlimb dissorders, stress. Who knows - even a slip or trip could start with a minor injury that is aggravated a couple of years later with another slip injury.

Another factor to consider is, what if they change the three-year rule? - One of the people on my previous thread said that Scottish courts were taking claims beyond three years.

If you decide to keep records for a very long-time -there is a cost implication - initial and yearly archiving, admin time etc. I'm wondering about scanning everything - I recently found an advert for a scanning/CD archiving system www.pinpointdigital.co.uk I have no idea how much it costs but it sounds like a neet system.

Good luck!