What You Need to Know About COSHH Compliance for London Businesses
- Jul 22
- 9 min read
Every London business uses cleaning chemicals, and every one of those products falls under COSHH, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. If you cannot produce documented risk assessments, safety data sheets, and training records during an HSE inspection, you are in breach of the law, with unlimited fines and the HSE recovering its costs at £188 per hour when a material breach is found.
In this article:
What COSHH Means for Cleaning Chemicals in London Workplaces
Which Cleaning Products in Your London Office Require a COSHH Assessment
How to Carry Out a COSHH Risk Assessment for Cleaning Chemicals
COSHH Storage and Labelling Requirements for Cleaning Chemicals
How Outsourcing Your Cleaning Helps With COSHH Compliance in London
What COSHH Means for Cleaning Chemicals in London Workplaces
COSHH stands for Control of Substances Hazardous to Health. The regulations were introduced in 2002 and are enforced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). They apply to every UK workplace, including every office, restaurant, gym, retail store, medical practice, and commercial premises in London.
COSHH requires employers to identify hazardous substances in the workplace, assess the risks they present to health, implement controls to prevent or minimise exposure, and monitor the effectiveness of those controls. The regulations cover chemicals, products containing chemicals, fumes, dusts, vapours, mists, gases, and biological agents.
For the majority of London businesses, the most relevant application of COSHH is cleaning chemicals. Any product that carries a GHS hazard pictogram, the red diamond warning symbols you see on product labels, is covered by COSHH. This includes bleach, toilet cleaners, disinfectants, degreasers, oven cleaners, descalers, floor strippers, carpet cleaning chemicals, glass cleaners, air fresheners with chemical propellants, and many multi-surface sprays.
The critical point is that COSHH applies regardless of how "ordinary" the product seems. A bottle of supermarket bleach requires the same risk assessment framework as an industrial degreaser. The hazard may be lower, but the legal obligation is the same.
Which Cleaning Products in Your London Office Require a COSHH Assessment
If you are unsure which products in your workplace fall under COSHH, here is a practical test. Check the label. If it carries any of the following GHS hazard pictograms, it requires a COSHH assessment.
The skull and crossbones symbol indicates acute toxicity, meaning the product can cause serious harm or death through single or short-term exposure. The corrosion symbol shows two surfaces being destroyed and indicates the product can cause severe skin burns or serious eye damage. The exclamation mark indicates lower-level hazards such as skin irritation, eye irritation, or respiratory irritation. The health hazard symbol, a silhouette with a starburst on the chest, indicates more serious chronic health effects such as respiratory sensitisation, carcinogenicity, or organ damage from repeated exposure. The environment symbol indicates the product is toxic to aquatic life.
In a typical London office, the cleaning products that require COSHH assessments include toilet bowl cleaner, bleach, bathroom disinfectant, kitchen degreaser, limescale remover, glass and mirror cleaner, floor cleaner, carpet stain remover, air freshener sprays, dishwasher tablets and rinse aid, antibacterial hand soap (if containing biocidal agents), and oven cleaner.
In restaurant and hospitality environments, the list expands to include industrial degreasers, extraction system cleaning chemicals, sanitisers for food contact surfaces, and any chemicals used in pest control.
In medical facilities, it extends further to include clinical disinfectants, instrument sterilisation chemicals, and any substances used in infection control.
How to Carry Out a COSHH Risk Assessment for Cleaning Chemicals
A COSHH assessment is not a generic form that you fill in once and file away. It is a working document that must reflect the actual substances used in your specific workplace, the specific tasks they are used for, and the people who are exposed to them.
The HSE recommends an eight-step approach to COSHH assessment.
Step one: gather information. List every hazardous substance used or stored in your workplace, including all cleaning products. Obtain the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for each product from the manufacturer or supplier. The SDS contains detailed information about the hazards, safe handling procedures, first aid measures, and storage requirements for each product.
Step two: identify the hazards. Read each SDS and identify the specific hazards. What are the routes of exposure? Can the product cause harm through skin contact, inhalation, or ingestion? What are the acute risks (immediate harm) and chronic risks (long-term harm from repeated exposure)?
Step three: assess who might be harmed and how. Consider everyone who might be exposed, not just the person using the product. In an office, this could include the cleaner, office staff who use the kitchen, maintenance workers, and visitors. In a restaurant, it includes kitchen staff, front-of-house staff, and customers.
Step four: evaluate the risks. Consider the likelihood and severity of harm. How often is the product used? For how long? In what concentration? Is the area well ventilated? Are there existing controls in place?
Step five: decide on control measures. COSHH requires you to follow a hierarchy of control. First, eliminate the hazardous substance if possible by replacing it with a safer alternative. If elimination is not possible, substitute with a less hazardous product. Then implement engineering controls such as ventilation. Then implement administrative controls such as procedures and training. Finally, provide personal protective equipment (PPE) as a last resort, not a first response.
Step six: implement the controls. Put the control measures into practice. This includes training staff, providing PPE where needed, ensuring correct storage, labelling all containers, and making SDSs accessible.
Step seven: monitor and review. Check that controls are working. Monitor exposure levels if necessary. Review the assessment at least annually, and immediately if there is a change in products, processes, or personnel, or after any incident or near miss.
Step eight: record the assessment. If you have five or more employees, you must record the assessment in writing. Even if you have fewer than five employees, written records are strongly recommended as evidence of compliance.
COSHH Storage and Labelling Requirements for Cleaning Chemicals
How you store cleaning chemicals in your London workplace is a compliance requirement, not a housekeeping preference.
All cleaning chemicals must be stored in their original containers with the manufacturer's label intact. If a product is decanted into a smaller container for daily use, that container must be clearly labelled with the product name and the relevant hazard pictograms. Unlabelled spray bottles are one of the most common COSHH failures found during HSE inspections and one of the easiest to prevent.
Chemicals must be stored in a designated area that is secure, well ventilated, and away from food preparation and consumption areas. Incompatible chemicals must be stored separately. Bleach and ammonia-based products, for example, must never be stored together because mixing them produces toxic chloramine gas.
Storage areas should be kept locked where possible to prevent unauthorised access. Spill containment measures should be in place. And all staff who access the storage area should know where the SDSs are kept and how to respond in the event of a spill or exposure incident.
COSHH Training Requirements for London Businesses
COSHH Regulation 12 requires employers to provide suitable and sufficient information, instruction, and training to any employee who may be exposed to hazardous substances. For cleaning chemicals, this applies to anyone who uses, handles, or stores them, including in-house cleaners, office staff who use kitchen cleaning products, and any contractor cleaning teams working on your premises.
Training must cover which products are hazardous and what the specific risks are, how to use products safely including correct dilution rates, what PPE is required and how to use it correctly, where products are stored and how to access SDSs, what to do in the event of a spill, splash, or accidental exposure, and how to report incidents or concerns.
Training is not a one-off event. It must be refreshed regularly, particularly when new products are introduced, when procedures change, or when new staff join. Training records must be maintained as evidence of compliance. If you outsource your cleaning to a professional provider, they should be able to provide evidence of COSHH training for all staff assigned to your premises. If they cannot, that is a serious red flag.
What Happens When London Businesses Fail COSHH Compliance
The consequences of COSHH non-compliance are significant and have increased substantially in recent years.
The HSE has the power to issue improvement notices requiring you to fix specific deficiencies within a set timeframe. They can issue prohibition notices that shut down an activity or an entire premises until the risk is controlled. And they can prosecute, with fines that are unlimited in the Crown Court.
Since April 2026, the HSE's Fee for Intervention (FFI) rate is £188 per hour. This means that when an inspector finds a material breach of health and safety law, including COSHH, the HSE recovers the full cost of the investigation at that hourly rate. A single inspection that identifies multiple COSHH failures can generate an FFI bill of several thousand pounds before any fine is even considered.
Recent prosecutions demonstrate the scale of penalties. In 2026, a company was fined £3.8 million plus £124,748 in costs after two workers suffered serious caustic soda burns at separate sites. The HSE found that COSHH controls were inadequate. In another case, a Nottingham cleaning product manufacturer was fined £50,000 after an agency worker suffered chemical burns to her face, eye, neck, and arm when she accidentally opened the wrong valve on a bulk container of corrosive drain cleaner. The HSE found inadequate training, PPE not routinely worn, and insufficient first aid provisions.
These are not hypothetical risks. Over 3,000 serious accidents involving cleaners are reported to the HSE each year, and the real number is believed to be significantly higher due to under-reporting. The HSE has signalled tighter monitoring and more frequent inspections in sectors where chemical use is high, including cleaning, hospitality, and healthcare.
COSHH Compliance Checklist for London Businesses
Use this checklist to assess your current COSHH compliance. If any answer is no or uncertain, it should be addressed before your next HSE interaction.
Do you have a complete inventory of every cleaning chemical used or stored on your premises?
Do you have a current Safety Data Sheet for every product on the inventory?
Has a COSHH risk assessment been completed for every product or process involving hazardous substances?
Are assessments reviewed at least annually and updated when products or processes change?
Are all chemical containers properly labelled, including any decanted products?
Are chemicals stored securely, in ventilated areas, away from food, and with incompatible products separated?
Have all staff who handle cleaning chemicals received documented COSHH training?
Is PPE available, in good condition, and actually being used where required?
Do you have a clear procedure for dealing with spills, splashes, and accidental exposure? Are incident reporting mechanisms in place and understood by all staff?
If you use an external cleaning company, can they provide evidence of their own COSHH compliance, including assessments, SDSs, and training records?
How Outsourcing Your Cleaning Helps With COSHH Compliance in London
One of the most effective ways to manage COSHH compliance for cleaning chemicals is to outsource your cleaning to a professional commercial cleaning company that manages COSHH as part of their standard operation.
When you employ in-house cleaners, the entire COSHH burden falls on you as the employer. You must source the products, obtain the SDSs, carry out the assessments, provide the training, supply the PPE, monitor exposure, maintain records, and review everything annually. For a business whose core activity is not cleaning, this represents a significant administrative and compliance overhead. Our comparison of in-house vs outsourced cleaning in London breaks down the full cost picture, including the hidden compliance costs that many businesses overlook.
When you outsource, your cleaning provider brings their own COSHH-assessed products, maintains their own SDSs, trains their own staff, supplies their own PPE, and manages the entire compliance chain. Your obligation shifts from managing COSHH directly to verifying that your chosen provider is doing it competently. That is a significantly lighter burden, provided you choose the right partner.
The key is to select a cleaning provider that can evidence their COSHH compliance on request. Ask to see their assessments, their SDSs, their training records, and their product certifications. A provider that takes COSHH seriously will have all of this readily available. A provider that hesitates or deflects should not be cleaning your premises.
Get a Free Consultation on COSHH-Compliant Commercial Cleaning in London
COSHH compliance does not have to be a burden for your business. At C&A Commercial Group, we manage it for you. Every cleaning product we use across our London contracts is fully COSHH assessed, with current Safety Data Sheets, documented risk assessments, and trained staff who understand correct handling, dilution, storage, and emergency procedures.
We use eco-friendly, non-toxic cleaning products wherever possible, reducing the chemical risk in your workplace while still delivering a professional standard of clean. All products are selected to minimise hazard without compromising effectiveness. We maintain detailed compliance documentation that is available on request for your own HSE records or in the event of an inspection.
We are SafeContractor approved, RoSPA assured, and CPD certified. We provide COSHH-compliant cleaning services for offices, restaurants, gyms, retail stores, medical practices, and commercial properties across Central London, Canary Wharf, Westminster, Shoreditch, Camden, Islington, Kensington, Chelsea, and Greenwich.
Contact C&A Commercial Group today for a free consultation and find out how professional, COSHH-compliant cleaning can protect your business, your staff, and your compliance record.
Comments