Your guide to COSHH risk assessments in cleaning

Protect your people, stay compliant, and keep cleaning safe with simple, practical steps. Our partners at Citation have put together a guide on how to get COSHH risk assessments right.

Why COSHH matters in cleaning

Running a cleaning business means you rely on chemical products every single day. From bleach and descalers to furniture polish and mould remover, they’re necessary to getting the job done. But they also carry risks.

COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) is one way to protect against those chemicals. COSHH risk assessments help look after your people, make your business compliant, and make sure you use substances safely.

How to build your COSHH risk assessment

You can break your COSHH risk assessment for cleaning down into simple steps. That way, you’ve got a framework that’s easy to follow and keep up to date.

Identify hazardous substances

List any products your team use – from everyday disinfectants to specialist degreasers.
Check labels for hazard symbols.
Make sure you’ve got a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for each product.
- Remember – SDSs aren’t a substitute for a COSHH assessment

Understand routes of exposure

- Substances can cause harm through inhalation, skin or eye contact, or ingestion.
- For example, toilet descaler is corrosive to skin and eyes, while white spirit can cause dizziness if it’s inhaled.

Evaluate the risk level

- Think about how the substance is used and the quantities, how people are exposed, and how severe the harm could be.
- Use risk ratings and check for Workplace Exposure Limits where relevant.

Put controls in place

- Follow the hierarchy of control:
  1. Eliminate the risk: Can you remove the substance or stop using it?
  2. Substitute: Can you swap the substance for something less hazardous?

Engineering controls: Can you use to reduce the impact?
Admin controls: Set up clear procedures, task rotation, and limit exposure time.
PPE (Personal Protective Equipment): Use gloves, goggles, and masks when other methods aren’t enough.

Record, monitor, review

- Write down your assessment – this is a legal requirement if you have five or more employees.
- Review it at least annually, or sooner if products, processes, or SDSs change.

Common pitfalls you need to avoid

Relying only on SDSs: They’re useful, but they’re not a COSHH assessment.
Having a ‘set and forget’ approach: Any assessments should be live and regularly updated.
Skipping steps of the hierarchy: Always try to eliminate or substitute hazards first.
Forgetting training: Even the best controls won’t work if your team isn’t trained to follow them.

Citation are here to help

COSHH can be overwhelming when you’re trying to balance safety with a busy cleaning business. That’s why you don’t have to do it alone.

With Citation, you get access to:

Their Atlas hub with thousands of ready-to-use risk assessment templates.
Expert support from Health & Safety consultants to assist with spotting risks, putting controls in place, and keeping your assessments up to date.
Paperwork and procedures that stand up to HSE scrutiny for your peace of mind.

Keeping your team safe and your business compliant doesn’t have to be a headache. With Citation’s support, you can get COSHH right and focus on delivering brilliant cleaning services to your clients.

Your BICSc member benefit

Want to find out more? Citation are here to help answer any question you may have. With over 30 years’ experience, their HR Health & Safety and Employment Law experts are just a phone call away.

Give them a call on 0345 844 1111 or click here to speak to an expert. Don’t forget, as a BICSc member, you get preferential rates on all of Citation’s services. Simply call up and quote ‘BICSc’ to get a 10% discount on all new client contracts.

Membership | Training | Standards

BICSc is the largest independent, professional, and educational body within the cleaning industry providing training and education, setting standards and procedures for cleaning. BICSc membership now stands at over 71,000 individual and corporate members in the UK and Internationally.

We are a membership organisation that strives to bring recognition of the vital role cleaning operatives play in everyone’s day-to-day life.

Whether you’re shopping, travelling, working, holidaying or recuperating, every one of these scenarios has cleaning staff striving to ensure that the environment is not only clean but also safe.

Founded over 60 years ago, BICSc key objective is to promote the value and professionalism of the cleaning industry, providing training in the key skills required to enhance a cleaning operative’s core role whilst keeping them safe and encouraging them to work in a more effective and efficient manner.

With a range of both practical and theoretical qualifications available, BICSc has something to help further the career of every cleaning professional from entry level, through to supervisor level, and up to an employer with your own business tendering for cleaning contracts.