FREE PDF guide: Planyour COSHH compliance &Risk Assessment strategy

The HSE's expectations around health and safety management have not changed in principle, but the bar for demonstrating compliance has risen. Inspectors want to see that COSHH assessments are task-specific, not generic. They want evidence that control measures have been validated, not just listed. And they expect organisations to show a clear review cycle, one that responds to changes in substances, processes, or personnel rather than running on a fixed calendar alone.

Documentation failures remain one of the most cited issues during enforcement activity. The gap is rarely a lack of awareness. It is the absence of a structured process that makes health and safety risk assessment consistent, traceable, and defensible across a whole organisation rather than dependent on one person knowing where everything is.

What makes COSHH compliance manageable? In practice, it is having a clear process that any competent team member can follow and repeat. That means risk assessment templates built around real tasks, not regulatory language. It means knowing exactly when a review is due and what triggers an unscheduled one. And it means being able to produce documentation quickly when it is asked for, without scrambling.

The guide includes access to a free five-step risk assessment tool that walks your team through a workplace risk assessment in a structured, regulation-aligned workflow. It is designed for people doing the work on the ground and it produces a COSHH assessment that you can stand behind in an audit.