The Final Part of A Directors Diary on CoSHH Management

In my last CoSHH diary entry I explained how I went about the task of managing CoSHH as to the best of my knowledge. This involved training my staff to understand basic risk assessment, asking manufacturers and/or suppliers for help if I needed information on their chemicals and the implementation of a CoSHH management system. This last week of my diary concludes with a Health and Safety Executive Inspector's audit and the findings of it [based on a real audit and several meetings with senior HSE inspectors].

Wednesday morning started with a knock on my door. As I think anyone would, I felt a little unnerved at first as I thought "oh dear, have I got everything in order". And then I thought, yes of course I have, everything is fine. The inspector requested to see my health and safety documentation before having a tour of the shop floor. With an element of nervousness I handed him a binder and set off around the building.

All in all I was very pleased with the response of my employees to some of the questions that had been asked by the inspector. I would say to anyone running their own business or managing health and safety that it's definitely worth teaching your staff the basics every six months or so; there's the fire exit, the meeting point, our risk assessments are available here and that sort of thing. It's definitely no use if it's all in your head. I mean, what if you were out when the inspector called??? Problems!

After walking around the building and offices for about an hour we returned back to my office, I offered the inspector a cup of tea and we sat down. The inspector remarked on the apparently well advised staff we had and that when he had asked them about the chemicals they were using that they seemed to know a great deal about which where the 'nasty' ones and how to handle them. He also spotted that we had put the CoSHH assessments on display next each machine so that the operators could see them always. Here's the interesting part; he told me that he had every faith that I had a well implemented and maintained health and safety strategy and that he did not feel that he had any concerns whatsoever. He was happy to be on his way and we had the big green light to continue our business and here's the clincher, he said:

"You would not believe the number of times I have walked into a business unannounced and have asked to see risk assessments and out pops from the manager's office filing cabinet a dust covered and obviously unused binder of CoSHH assessments and such like. Now there are two major concerns here, the first being that the Safety Data Sheets if they exist are most likely out of date and the second that nobody has looked at them since, well it's anyone's guess.

The first thing that I do is close the binder and tell the manager that I want to talk to his operators and it pretty much goes downhill from there. I'm always keen to know if the assessments have been carried out by a consultant that has been used as a one-off and then never asked to return or train the operators. I always find myself advising businesses that if they are using a consultant then they need to get them involved in their business as health and safety is more then just paperwork, it is about ensuring tasks are performed safely, that's it. If you wonder what an inspector is really looking for we are looking for you to simply make the task safer and you have clearly demonstrated that and communicated effectively down to your staff."

Being that I was on a roll I decided to show off my CoSHH management system to get a feel for the work we had done. I explained a bit of the history of what we had done as my diary detailed in previous weeks. The comments on the inspector's report where this:

"Excellent work was produced that had been undertaken with CoSHH software in relation to CoSHH assessments." [link to testimonial]

He commented that he liked the fact that the report took you through assessing each activity and hazards associated with the substance, and not just assessing the substance as so often is the case.

After this I pretty much felt I'd had good day and although I would never take my eye off the ball now, knowing that I could get a surprise visit at any time. I felt comfortable that I had everything in order and a shiny health and safety report to show off to my managers who had all something to pat themselves on the back about.

So to everyone who wants to maintain a healthy business with healthy staff and adequate working policies I say, use common sense and start from the top down. You must have management buy-in and although paperwork is necessary it is a must that you communicate with staff so they understand the hazards, how to carry out their tasks safety and what to do in the event that something does go wrong.

This concludes my diary. I will close by saying you are always better to be prepared! A prepared business is a safe business and safe business is a good business.