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Posted By Herb
Hi all,
I have a question concerning COSHH for which I would appreciate some help.
I have recently taken over H&S issues as part of a new job.
In the new department we have laboratory sections. The first section assesses individual chemicals as a COSHH assessment with a separate risk assessment for a process which then refers the user to the COSHH assessments for the reagents used in the process.
In the second section they carry out their COSHH assessments on the process assessing the reagents used in that process.
In all the previous labs I have worked in, we carried out COSHH assessments as per the second group. I have looked on line and several universities which allow access to their COSHH templates are by process. It has been my understanding that this is how COSHH should be done (i.e. by process not chemical).
I/we would like to have one system in place to make life easier for auditing purposes and consistency across the department.
However, the section which has carried out their COSHH on the individual chemicals is reluctant to change their format as they believe that they are doing it correctly. They also state that until several years ago they did do their assessments by process but it became to confusing for the laboratory staff and on advice changed to their procedure.
My question is are both methods correct or should the COSHH assessment be performed by process.
Sorry about the length of the post
Thanks
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Posted By Kate Graham
An assessment of a chemical is not a COSHH assessment (in my book) - a COSHH assessment is an assessment of a process. Assessment of the chemical in isolation is pretty meaningless, especially if the chemicals are going to be mixed together and may undergo chemical reactions, because then you also have to consider whether the reactions could be violent, what the products of reaction will be, etc.
If the risk assessment of the process includes a COSHH element considering all the health risks of the process, along with all the other risks, fine (even if it's not called a COSHH assessment) - but whatever information is provided just about the isolated chemicals is not a COSHH assessment, it is just information.
On the other hand if you have few processes but many chemicals you could have a chemical-based approach instead of a process-based approach in which you said chemicals A, B, C, ... etc are all used in the same way but have different risks, so here is the assessment for each chemical (used in that same way). Does that describe what the lab are doing?
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Posted By Adrian Watson
Both are correct; however, on past experience task based assessments are best!
Don't change what's not broke.
Regards Adrian Watson FFOH Dip Occ Hyg
Registed Occupational Hygienist
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Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Herb
An assessment of a substance is a hazard assessment; COSHH assessments must be process-based. As an ex-chemist, I can appreciate why your chemists think in terms of the substances used but wouldn't they rather do one assessment on, say, dispensing rather than four assessments because they dispense four acids. Admittedly, they would probably need another assessment for dispensing alkalis but it would still mean less work.
Paul
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Herb
Thanks for the feed back. I have a meeting about this today so I will see how things go.
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