Digital COSHH Assessments With An Auditing App: Improving Safety, Efficiency, And Compliance

May 26 , 2023

Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) is a set of rules that requires businesses to evaluate and manage the risks that hazardous substances cause in the workplace. COSHH exams are essential for ensuring compliance and safety in the workplace.

Protective measures play a crucial role in safeguarding workers from the harmful effects of hazardous materials, ultimately reducing the likelihood of illness and accidents. Moreover, such measures aid in achieving compliance with health and safety regulations.

Still, performing tasks manually can be time-consuming, resource-intensive, and prone to errors.

Businesses can improve safety by finding risks and dangers on-site using mobile auditing software for regular inspections to make it easier to follow regulations.

Technological improvements allow COSHH assessments to be done digitally using a monitoring and auditing app. This makes the assessment process faster, more accurate, and more effective.

This blog will discuss digital COSHH evaluation’s benefits and how they can help companies improve safety, compliance, and speed.

What Do COSHH Evaluations Bring About?

Employers who use dangerous chemicals must do a COSHH assessment and follow the law. Dangerous objects include chemicals, gases, dust, biological agents, and other things that could hurt people. In a COSHH evaluation, the dangers of these compounds exist, and the risks they cause need evaluation to lower those risks. The goal of a COSHH evaluation is to make sure that workers are safe from the harmful effects of dangerous substances at work.

What Are COSHH Rules At Work, And Why Are They Important?

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says that the COSHH Act is the rule that tells employers to control dangerous substances, including nanomaterials. Besides looking at risks to health and safety in general, COSHH rules pay close attention to the dangers that certain compounds can pose in the workplace, like manufacturing, healthcare, building, and any other industry that uses dangerous substances.

Using the control methods that COSHH risk assessment suggests, you can stop or limit your employees’ exposure to substances that are bad for their health. Because of this, a COSHH risk evaluation document should have the following:

• Workplace Exposure Limits (WELs)
• Furnish with information regarding the type of work and the number of substances being utilised
• The level, kind, and length of exposure to the substances
• The dangerous parts of the material
• The possible health effects of the substances
• The results of monitoring and health surveillance
• Strategies for preventing and stopping drug exposure

Employers can put someone in charge of doing COSHH reviews on the inside by using an auditing tool to help them find the right person. If your business deals with hazardous compounds, it is essential to have qualified individuals who can identify potential health risks and implement controls to minimise those risks.

The Main Types Of COSHH Assessments And Chemicals

There are two primary categories of COSHH assessments: general and specific. You can perform Generic reviews for drugs often used at work and whose risks are well known. On the other hand, drugs that aren’t well-known or only called in certain situations get their own tests. As we already said, specific assessments often need the help of a professional because they are more in-depth than generic ones.

Below are examples of COSHH assessments, along with their meanings.

1. Supplies For Cleaning: Many cleaning products contain dangerous chemicals that can hurt your health if you use them wrong. You can use COSHH assessments to determine what chemicals are hazardous and what safety steps you must take when dealing with them. Using COSHH exams, keeping an eye on and improving health and safety standards is essential.
2. Paints And Solvents: You can decide if you need a COSHH assessment by looking at the place of work. Suppose your concern is exposure to VOCs (volatile organic compounds). In that case, this tool can support you in understanding the associated risks and the necessary steps to minimise or eliminate them.
3. Pesticides: Pesticides are used in gardening and agriculture. Apart from other safety and general checks in agriculture, COSHH assessments of pesticides can help determine how dangerous it is around these chemicals and what security steps a firm needs to take when dealing with and using them.
4. Chemicals Used In Manufacturing: Many businesses commonly use them during their manufacturing processes. You can use the COSHH studies of these substances to figure out how dangerous it is to be around these chemicals and what workers need to do to protect themselves. This massive set of checklists will help you find risks, follow health rules, and speed up inspections at your production sites and activities.

Lastly, COSHH assessments mostly look at chemicals, fumes, dust, vapours, mists, nanotechnology, biological agents (germs), and goods that contain chemicals, gases, and gases that make it hard to breathe. COSHH assessments don’t cover lead, asbestos, or radioactive substances.

What Do COSHH Marks (Hazard Pictograms) Mean?

Assuring health and safety in the workplace is vital, and COSHH plays a crucial role in this. As mentioned that it identifies hazardous substances and provides a way to minimise their potential harm to employees and others under your responsibility. However, while reading, you may wonder about the meaning behind COSHH symbols. It’s important to note that the COSHH symbols are not official terms which allow for some interpretation when categorising substances under COSHH, if applicable.

Improving communication with the GB Classification, Labelling, and Packaging of Chemicals Regulation (GB CLP) can help enhance worker safety. The regulation includes several COSHH marks. Knowing the differences between the COSHH symbols can reduce the chances of getting hurt or sick at work. Commonly utilised pictograms for significant dangers comprise explosive, oxidising, flammable, gases under pressure, toxic, corrosive, health and environmental hazard.

You can learn more about COSHH icons and what they mean on the HSE network site.

Discover the Advantages of Conducting COSHH Assessments Digitally Using an Auditing App

Let’s review digital COSHH assessments’ benefits with an auditing app.

Enhance Data Accuracy And Consistency

A digital COSHH exam and digital audit app can make data more accurate and consistent. Assessors can reduce the chance of making mistakes by entering data into a digital format. This stops the demand for data entry or transcription by hand. You can raise the assessment’s general quality by ensuring the data are correct and consistent.

Better Performance

Assessors can do COSHH assessments in person and in real-time with the help of an auditing app having digital COSHH evaluations improving efficiency. So, evaluators can enter data before they get back to the office. By doing this, you can save time and complete follow-up work faster.

Compliance Improvement

Organisations can use digital COSHH reviews and an auditing tool to ensure they still follow COSHH rules. Companies can ensure that their evaluations align with the latest regulations and best practises by utilising an auditing app.

Improved Safety

Businesses can utilise auditing apps and digital COSHH assessments to better understand the risks associated with using hazardous substances in the workplace and determine appropriate measures to manage them effectively. Organisations can reduce the chance of accidents, diseases, and injuries by deciding what could go wrong and putting the proper rules in place.

Better Reporting

Digital COSHH evaluations with an auditing app can improve reporting by making it easy and quick for businesses to create reports. Using professional report templates, companies can make sure that their reports are all the same, well-written, and meet the latest legal requirements.

Have Digital COSHH Exams With The UrAudits Inspections App

Over the recent period, computers have become more prevalent in testing. UrAudits’ digital COSHH assessment offers several benefits. It speeds up the entering of data and makes linking supporting documents and images more accessible. Also, the software decreases the likelihood of errors caused by humans. Mobile audits are a smart choice for the environment since they reduce the need for paper copies and storage, free up office space, and eliminate manual record-keeping requirements.

The use of digital COSHH assessments makes it simpler to monitor and manage potentially hazardous situations. Using the action plans and intelligent dashboards UrAudits provides, you can watch the usage and management of potentially harmful substances in real time and identify potential dangers and spots that could benefit from faster improvement. Because of this, there will be a significant reduction in the likelihood that any worker will become harmed while on the job.

Conclusion

In conclusion, businesses can save time and money by doing COSHH assessments and other health and safety audits online. They can also get better access to information and do a better job of managing workplace risks. By switching to a digital system, you can meet your legal obligations and make your workplace safer and more productive at the same time.

You can make COSHH examinations more manageable and accessible and improve data quality and consistency, efficiency, safety, and compliance via UrAudits’ auditing app. Our digital audit software helps firms evaluate consistently and swiftly, ensuring worker safety and compliance.