Are you under the COSHH?

March 21, 2016

Health and Safety is now recognised as vital across all aspects of the industry, with COSHH being a well-known term used by many.  But did you know that each of your LEV systems requires a thorough Test and Examination conducted within a 14 month period?

Many companies are running LEV systems that have never been commissioned, tested, serviced or had any air monitoring conducted to understand the potential issues that may be affecting their staff and may potentially leave the company and their owners at risk of prosecution.

The impact of not testing your LEV System

Occupational diseases are being regularly monitored to understand the impact to the health service with 13,000 people dying each year from occupationally related diseases.

The HSE has estimated that out of 330,000 LEV systems that approximately 200,000 of them have never been tested.  With so few being tested, many systems are not effectively protecting staff from being exposed to hazardous substances.  Just having a system in place does not mean it is doing the job it was originally designed to do and with the HSE increasing the number of companies they investigate, is it worth not having a compliant LEV system?

What can we do about it?

Firstly, as an employer or a worker, we have to realise that it’s not OK to breathe in substances just because others have been doing so for years.  Some people are lucky enough to never really have any ill effects, but others can acquire serious long-term health issues with the employer being liable.

By having a thorough examination and test of all LEV systems completed by a fully qualified and competent engineer, the first steps to ensure adequate control to minimise the risk to staff, as specified by the HSE, have been taken.

Who Can Test Your System?

The most basic level of qualification an individual needs to test LEV systems is the P601.  However, what this qualification does not cover in any detail is the design of the LEV systems – the knowledge of which we feel is essential to be able to provide recommendations for improvement should a system fail the LEV test.

This is why Vent-Tech engineers are P601 and P602 qualified and members of ILEVE and our LEV commissioning engineers also hold the new advanced P604 qualification.  This means that we don’t just pass or fail your system, we take it one step further and can give you expert and accurate guidance and proposals to get the best from your system. So if you’d like to have a chat about potentially having any of your systems checked, please call, email or send us a contact form.