HSE People - Health and Safety Community

Hi all, I thought I would start my first forum post with one of my pet hates 'COSHH Assessments' and for the record one of my other major dislikes is (and I'm putting that politely) 'Manual Handling Training' but that’s for another discussion!!! Anyway back to the matter in hand, COSHH. The question that I want to put out there is……Are COSHH assessments done really badly? Having worked as a Health and Safety Inspector and within the private sector as a consultant, a reoccurring theme would regularly crop up (apologies for using reoccurring and regularly in the same sentence when they pretty much mean the same thing. I’m Welsh and often use repeated words in phrases such as ‘Whose coat is that jacket??’ Anyway I’m slightly degreasing (sorry I meant digressing. Apologies agian I’m one of those blokes who thinks that Grenoble in the South of France is where the mid 80’s nuclear disaster occurred). Back to my point - COSHH., I have so very often seen this area of health and safety done so very badly. The common mistakes are as follows: · Businesses think it all about chemicals and forget or are unaware about physical and biological hazards such as food and wood dust, and occupational diseases. · Daft COSHH forms that offer no more purpose than transferring info from a COSHH data sheet. · Think its all about PPE and are happy to supply their staff with BnQ facemasks and marigolds when spray paintings!!!. · Forget to think about the task in hand and not consider COSHH into their task risk assessment. · Possibly look at the shite and over complicated ‘COSHH Essentials’ produced by the HSE!!! Kind regards and would appreciate your comments Owain Hughes, and before you ask, no I don’t!