Health and Saftey

The objectives of the health and safety work act (1974) 

Safekeeping the health, safety and wellbeing of individuals at their workplace

Protecting individuals, other than people at work, against unnecessary risk that come from outside the workplace or even inside if they enter the premises.

Supervising flammable and dangerous explosives inside the workplace, so no lawsuits will be placed on the company

The duties of employers towards substances used at work are:

Execute testing and inspection as that may be necessary to ensure the safety of the employees in the workplace

You have to ensure that the substance will be safe and without risks to health at all times when it is being used, treated, stored or transported by a person at work.

Take various steps as it is reasonably practicable. Personnel of the workplace are provided with information as are necessary this is mandatory so they know what the cause of a serious health risk is.

Take such steps that are essential to secure, people who are supplied with the substances are provided with satisfactory information about the any risks to health or safety to which the properties of the substance may give rise about.

The objectives of COSHH are:

·         Finding out what the health hazards are

·         Deciding how to prevent harm to any individual’s wellbeing that might include completing a risk assessment.

·         Run control measures to lower any health hazards

·         keeping all control measures in good working order plus making sure there are no setbacks

·         giving information which comes under teaching and training for employees and others

·         providing monitoring and health surveillance in appropriate cases

·         Preparing for future emergencies.

Here are the industries who cover the COSHH :

Motor vehicle repair^[10]
eg paints, fuels, brake fluid, lubricants, degreasing fluids, cleaning products, welding and cutting fumes, dusts, battery acid.

Welding^[11]

Eg fumes, dust, chemicals, work in confined spaces, inert gases.

Woodworking^[12]
eg dusts, adhesives, paints, stripping fluids, lubricants, disinfectants to treat water systems.

Agriculture^[1]
eg dusts, chemicals, diseases, toxic gases.

Baking^[2]
eg dusts, enzymes, flavour concentrates, cleaning products.

Beauty^[3]
eg products that cause skin irritation, allergies and asthma, acrylic fumes.

Catering^[4]

Eg products that cause dermatitis, skin allergies, asthma, and fumes.

Cleaning^[5]
eg products that cause dermatitis, allergies and asthma, corrosive products.

Engineering^[6]

Eg dusts, fumes, chemicals, germs in metalworking fluids

Hairdressing^[7]

Eg products that cause dermatitis, allergies, asthma.

Offshore oil and gas ^[8]

Printing^[9]
eg products that can cause dermatitis, skin allergies and asthma, corrosive products, solvent vapours, ingredients that can cause damage to internal organs over a long period of time.

The substances that the COSHH defined as ‘hazardous to health’ are:

·         chemicals

·         products containing chemicals

·         fumes

·         dusts

·         vapours

·         mists

·         nanotechnology

·         gases and asphyxiating gases and

·         biological agents (germs

The advice that COSHH gives to protect yourself while working with hazardous materials is

·         To provide a risk assessment this is to prevent any ill health in the workplace.

When a specific task involves very small amounts of material, even if these are harmful, when there is little chance of it escaping a risk assessment is still needed to prevent any hiccups from occurring

·         There are also control measures that have to be used in the work area

·         Control measures are always a mixture of equipment and ways of working to reduce any type of exposure.

·         Control equipment comes in many forms. It includes ventilation to extract dust,

mist and fume

·         This is very important as by breathing in some substances can attack the nose, throat or lungs while others get into the body through the lungs and harm other parts of the body

The aims of the health and safety regulations 1992 are to:

Provide eye and eyesight tests on request and also provide special googles if needed

Make sure all controls are in place

Investigate the various workstations to assess and lower the risk value

Provide information and training

Review assessment when the user or DSE changes

The problems that is associated with displayed with DSE are:

 Some individuals may experience fatigue, eye strain, upper limb problems and backache from abuse or improper use of DSE.

The advice the websites gives about working with DSE is

                Adjust curtains or blinds to prevent intrusive light.

Make sure there is space under the desk to move legs to make the workspace more comfortable and less compact

Avoid excess pressure from the edge of seats on the backs of legs and knees. A footrest may be helpful, particularly for smaller users.

With this advice user will avoid getting DSE