Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Training

Workers come into contact with hazardous substances during routine tasks — handling cleaning chemicals, decanting solvents, mixing products, applying coatings or disposing of waste. Exposure can happen through skin contact, inhalation or accidental spills, and the health effects often build up over months or years before symptoms appear.

The scale of harm is significant. The HSE estimates that around 11,000 deaths each year are linked to past exposure at work, mainly to chemicals or dust. Around 22,000 new cases of work-related lung disease are estimated annually. Because these conditions develop slowly, the damage is often done long before the cause is recognised.

When workers do not understand why specific controls are required, routine practices such as PPE use, hand-washing, ventilation checks and safe disposal can be applied inconsistently. Over time, this raises both the risk of harm and the chance of regulatory breach.

The health consequences for workers are well established and include skin conditions such as dermatitis, respiratory disease such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), poisoning and — in some cases — cancer. Many of these conditions are permanent and life-limiting. For employers, non-compliance can lead to enforcement action, civil claims and financial penalties.

This training helps workers recognise hazardous substances in their daily work, understand how exposure occurs and apply the controls that prevent harm.

Are You Aware of Your Responsibilities?

COSHH is a legal duty, not best practice. Under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, employers must:

• Assess the risks from hazardous substances used or created at work (Regulation 6)
• Prevent exposure where possible, or adequately control it where prevention is not reasonably practicable (Regulation 7)
• Ensure control measures are properly used, maintained, examined and tested, including thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation where required (Regulations 8 and 9).
• Monitor exposure and provide health surveillance where the risk assessment requires it (Regulations 10 and 11)
• Provide workers with information, instruction and training on the risks and the precautions that protect them (Regulation 12)
• Put arrangements in place to deal with accidents, spills and emergencies (Regulation 13)

Workers also have legal duties. They must use the control measures and PPE provided, follow safe working procedures, and report defects, spills and health concerns promptly.

Failing to meet these duties carries real consequences. The HSE can issue improvement and prohibition notices, recover its costs through Fee for Intervention, and bring a prosecution.

Health and safety offences carry unlimited fines in the Crown Court and, in the most serious cases, up to two years’ imprisonment. Directors and managers can also be prosecuted personally where a breach results from their consent, connivance or neglect.

Inadequate training and inconsistent PPE use are recurring failures in COSHH enforcement cases — the kind of gap this course helps close.

How COSHH Training Benefits Your Business

This COSHH awareness training course is designed to help organisations close the gap between the COSHH duty on paper and how it is applied day to day. Specifically, it helps you:

• Support compliance with the COSHH Regulation 12 training requirement, when used alongside workplace-specific information, instruction and supervision.
• Reduce the risk of exposure incidents that lead to lost time, injury claims and enforcement action
• Strengthen audit readiness, with training records available for HSE inspections, ISO audits and client compliance checks
• Deploy training at scale across sites, shifts, new starters and agency workers without the cost of in-house delivery

Improve consistency of hazard recognition and control behaviour across teams
For organisations managing hazardous substances across multiple locations or fluctuating headcount, this gives a single, defensible training baseline that every worker can be held to.

About This Course

The online COSHH Training course gives organisations a practical way to support the training requirement and provide a consistent awareness baseline across the workforce. It is an IIRSM-approved online course designed for any worker at risk of exposure to hazardous substances, from construction and manufacturing operatives through to laboratory, cleaning, healthcare and agricultural staff.