What is COSHH training?
COSHH stands for the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. COSHH training gives employees and duty holders the knowledge to identify hazardous substances, assess the risk they present, and put effective controls in place — protecting staff and meeting the legal duties the Regulations impose.
Chemicals, dusts, fumes, vapours, mists and biological agents can all cause serious harm, from skin and respiratory conditions to long-term occupational disease. Every course on this page is advertised and delivered by an established, accredited UK training provider.
A COSHH assessment is not a safety data sheet. This is the most common misunderstanding, and one HSE inspectors encounter regularly. The supplier’s data sheet tells you about the substance. A COSHH assessment tells you about your use of it — how much, how often, in what space, by whom, and what could go wrong.
Filing the data sheets is not compliance. The assessment is the piece of work the Regulations actually require, and it is the reason assessment training matters more than awareness training for anyone carrying responsibility.
Our COSHH courses
Three courses covering different levels of responsibility — general awareness, practical assessment skills, and the specialist duties around ventilation.
All staff working with hazardous substances · e-learning
Start here · Online
Covers hazardous substances, how exposure happens, the control hierarchy and each worker’s own responsibilities. Completed at your own pace, which suits shift patterns and dispersed teams. The right baseline for anyone who handles or works near hazardous materials.
Those carrying out COSHH assessments
Assessor level
Develops the skills to produce COSHH assessments that stand up — interpreting safety data sheets, judging exposure, selecting proportionate controls and recording the reasoning. This is the course that turns a folder of data sheets into actual compliance.
LEV Management for Duty Holders
Duty holders responsible for ventilation systems
Duty holder
Local Exhaust Ventilation is the main engineering control for airborne hazards, and it carries specific duties — including thorough examination and testing at least every 14 months. Covers what duty holders must do to keep LEV working and demonstrate that it does.
Which do I need? Awareness training for everyone who works with or near hazardous substances. Assessment training for whoever writes your COSHH assessments — and someone has to. LEV training if you rely on extraction to control exposure, since that equipment carries its own examination duties.
Unsure? Call 0808 1966 830 or make an enquiry.
What you will learn
- How to identify hazardous substances in your workplace, including reading safety data sheets
- Legal responsibilities under the COSHH Regulations 2002
- How to carry out effective risk assessments for substance use
- The hierarchy of control — eliminate, substitute, engineer, then protect the individual
- Workplace exposure limits, where to find them in HSE guidance note EH40, and what they do and do not tell you
- Controlling exposure through ventilation and, where nothing else will do, PPE
- Safe storage, handling and disposal of hazardous materials
- Records, health surveillance and monitoring ongoing compliance
PPE is the last resort, not the first answer. COSHH requires exposure to be prevented where reasonably practicable, and only adequately controlled where prevention is not. Masks and gloves sit at the bottom of the hierarchy because they rely on being worn correctly every time, by every person, and they protect only the wearer. Substituting a substance or extracting at source protects everyone in the room without anyone having to remember anything.
Why COSHH training matters
The harm is often slow
Occupational lung disease, dermatitis and asthma develop over years of exposure that felt harmless at the time. By the point symptoms appear, the damage is frequently permanent.
It is a legal duty
The Regulations require employers to assess risk, prevent or control exposure, maintain controls and inform and train those affected. Training supports the whole of that duty.
Substances are everywhere
Not just chemicals in drums. Cleaning products, wood and silica dust, welding fume, solvents, flour and biological agents all fall within COSHH, in workplaces that do not consider themselves industrial.
Controls degrade quietly
Extraction loses performance, filters clog and masks stop fitting. Without someone trained to notice, a workplace can believe it is protected long after it stopped being so.
Who should attend
Training a team? COSHH benefits from on-site delivery more than most subjects, because the training can work through the substances you actually hold, your own data sheets and your own storage arrangements. That turns a general course into a working session on your real risks. See on-site training for groups.
COSHH training — frequently asked questions
Is a safety data sheet the same as a COSHH assessment?
No, and confusing the two is the most common COSHH failing. The safety data sheet comes from the supplier and describes the substance. A COSHH assessment is yours, and describes how you use it — the quantity, frequency, method, environment and people involved, and what could go wrong. Two workplaces using the identical product will need different assessments. Keeping a folder of data sheets is not compliance.
What substances does COSHH cover?
Far more than most people expect: chemicals and cleaning products, dusts including wood and silica, fumes such as welding fume, vapours, mists, gases, and biological agents. It also covers substances generated by a process rather than bought in — the dust produced by cutting a paving slab is a COSHH substance even though nobody purchased it. Asbestos, lead and radioactive substances have their own separate regulations.
How often should COSHH training be refreshed?
No fixed interval is set in law. Many organisations refresh every two to three years as policy, and refresher training is also worth triggering when new substances or processes are introduced, when an assessment is revised, after an incident, or where monitoring suggests controls are not being used properly.
What is a workplace exposure limit?
A WEL is the maximum concentration of an airborne substance, averaged over a set period, to which employees may be exposed. WELs are published by HSE in guidance note EH40. Two cautions worth knowing: not every substance has one, and a WEL is a legal ceiling rather than a safe level. COSHH still requires exposure to be reduced so far as is reasonably practicable, even where you are already below the limit.
How often does LEV need to be tested?
Local Exhaust Ventilation must undergo thorough examination and testing at least once every 14 months, with records kept. Some processes listed in the Regulations require more frequent examination than that. Extraction that has quietly lost performance is a common finding, and it is invisible without testing — the fan still runs and the workplace still believes it is protected.
Is COSHH training a legal requirement?
No specific course is named in law, but the Regulations require employers to provide suitable information, instruction and training to anyone exposed to hazardous substances. Accredited training is the usual way of demonstrating that, and its absence is difficult to defend if someone is harmed.
Do we need health surveillance?
Where exposure to certain substances could cause an identifiable disease and there is a valid way of detecting it, health surveillance may be required. Common examples include skin checks where dermatitis is a risk and lung function testing where respiratory sensitisers are used. Whether it applies to you comes out of the COSHH assessment, which is another reason the assessment matters.
Related training and guidance
Risk assessment guidance
PPE guidance
Asbestos training
Face fit testing
Silica dust awareness
Silica dust for duty holders
Environmental training
On-site group training
This page is general guidance and does not replace the COSHH Regulations 2002 or your own risk assessment.