New regulations will protect workers from dangerous substances

HSC Press Release - 1 November 2002

New regulations aiming to protect workers from the risks of hazardous substances were laid before Parliament today by Nick Brown, Minister for health and safety.

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) 2002, the Control of Lead at Work Regulations (CLAW) 2002 and the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations (CAW) 2002, apart from Regulations 4 and 20,already announced by ministers, come into force on 21 November 2002, and replace the COSHH Regulations 1999, CLAW Regulations 1998 and the CAW Regulations 1987. The new sets of Regulations will implement those health requirements of the European Union's Chemical Agents Directive (CAD) that are not already set out in British legislation.

The Directive is designed to protect the health and safety of workers from the risks from chemical agents, and largely follows the well accepted principles already present in UK legislation. These include the need to carry out assessments of risk for chemical agents; prevent or adequately control exposure; monitor exposure; place employees under health surveillance and provide employees with information, instruction and training. Most of the changes to the Regulations simply make explicit what is currently implicit in the current Regulations and Approved Codes of Practice. However they now also include a new requirement for employers, in certain circumstances, to draw up detailed procedures for dealing with accidents, incidents and emergencies that involve hazardous substances.

Although the changes made to the Regulations are numerous, employers who are already fully complying with the current Regulations and their supporting Approved Codes of Practice (ACoP) should to a large extent already be carrying out the duties the new Regulations will impose. Many smaller firms who prefer legislation in a form that sets out more precisely what they must do to comply with the law are expected to welcome the increased prescription in the Regulations.

Bill Macdonald, Head of the COSHH and CLAW Policy Unit in HSE said:

"Every year thousands of employees are made ill by the effects of hazardous substances to which they are exposed at work, and most of this misery and the accompanying business losses could be avoided with better risk assessment and control. The new Regulations and ACoPs are a significant further development of a well-established system, and will again highlight the risks of exposure to hazardous substances in the workplace. I urge employers to use them as an incentive to take a fresh look at their workplace procedures and systems to ensure that they are doing everything practicable to protect the health of their workers".

As well as extending COSHH to implement CAD, a number of changes have been made to make clear that the Regulations apply to biological agents as well as to chemicals. The changes introduce some additional measures to control the risk of exposure when intentionally working with biological agents.

Dr James Neilson, Head of the Biological Agents Policy Unit in HSE, said:

"Many of the changes to COSHH are designed to make it clear that the Regulations apply to both chemical and biological agents, whether or not exposure to such biological agents is deliberate, such as for laboratory workers, or incidental, for sewage workers, cleaners, farmers. The changes will help ensure that employers adequately assess the risks to their employees' health from exposure to biological agents at work and, where appropriate, take the necessary steps to prevent or adequately control the risks from that exposure."

Extensively revised ACoPs will support the new COSHH and CLAW Regulations. The new COSHH ACoP will include an appendix providing guidance on the "Control of substances that cause occupational asthma" which HSC approved last year as part of its current asthma initiative. The ACoPs will be available towards the ends of November.

On 21 November, a revised maximum exposure limit (MEL) for vinyl chloride monomer will also come into force. The revised MEL, which is needed to implement part of an EC Directive on carcinogens, will be 3 parts per million (ppm) (8-hour time-weighted average).

The requirements of the Chemical Agents Directive, dealing with safety risks, e.g. from fire and explosion, will be implemented by new Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002. These will be considered by Nick Brown shortly.

Notes to Editors

1. COSHH was originally introduced in October 1989 and has been updated on a number of occasions since then. It provides a comprehensive and systematic approach to the control of hazardous substances at work, where risks to health and the costs of failure are often substantial in both human and economic terms. The Regulations require employers to: (a) assess risks to health arising from exposure to hazardous substances; (b) prevent or adequately control exposure; (c) ensure that control measures are used, maintained, examined and tested; (d) in some circumstances monitor exposure and carry out appropriate health surveillance; (e) inform, instruct and train employees.

2. The original CLAW Regulations came into force in August 1981. The Regulations were revised, amended and replaced by the CLAW Regulations 1998 on 1 April 1998 and follow closely the structure of the COSHH Regulations. However, if an employer concludes from the assessment that the exposure of employees to lead is likely to be "significant", a term defined by the Regulations, the employer must introduce specific controls such as issuing employees with protective clothing, carrying out air monitoring and placing them under medical surveillance.

3. If despite all control measures, the amount of lead that an employee absorbs reaches the suspension level, the doctor responsible for medical surveillance will confirm the measurement and then usually certify that the employee should be removed from any further work involving exposure to lead. This is to protect the employee from developing the more serious symptoms associated with exposure to lead. The employee is allowed to resume work-involving exposure to lead when his blood-lead level has fallen back below the suspension level. Some 16,000 employees are under medical surveillance each year because of their exposure to lead at work.

4. Council Directive 98/24/EC (the Chemicals Agents Directive - OJ L 131, 5.5.98, p.11) on the protection of the health and safety of workers from the risks related to chemical agents at work was adopted on 7 April 1998 and required implementation by 5 May 2001.

5. Schedule 3 of the existing COSHH Regulations applies to biological agents. In the current amendments, the opportunity has been taken to simplify and clarify these biological agents provisions. The main change has been to move those sections of Schedule 3 which relate to general COSHH duties into the main COSHH Regulations to make it clear that the main Regulations apply to all exposures to biological agents (i.e. deliberate working and incidental exposure). Schedule 3 has also been amended to reflect practical experience of the Regulations in the years they have been in force.

6. MELs are assigned to substances which may cause the most serious health effects, such as cancer and occupational asthma and for which "safe" levels of exposure cannot be determined, or for substances for which safe levels may exist but control to those levels is not reasonably practicable. MELs are approved by the HSC. Employers must ensure that employees' exposure to any substance assigned a MEL is reduced so far as is reasonably practicable and in any case below the MEL. The revised MEL for vinyl chloride monomer has been introduced to implement a requirement in Council Directive 1999/38/EEC of 29 April 1999 amending for the second time Council Directive 90/394/EEC (the Carcinogens Directive) on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens at work and extending it to mutagens.

7. The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations as well as being amended to implement CAD will also include a new requirement to manage asbestos in workplace buildings. This new duty will have lead in period of 18 months and come into force on 21 May 2004. There is also a 24 month lead period for the new requirement to be accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service to analyse materials to identify asbestos, which comes into force on 21 November 2004. This is announced in a press notice issued by the Department for Work and Pensions, HSE's sponsor department, and can be found at www.dwp.gov.uk

Copies of the Statutory Instruments: "The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002", S.I. 2002/2677 and "The Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002", S.I. 2002/2676 will be available shortly from The Stationery Office.

Copies of the Approved Codes of Practice: "The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002", L5, ISBN 7176 2534 6; price £10.50, will be available shortly from HSE Books.

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