Monitoring Records
The employer must keep a suitable record of any monitoring carried out under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations.
The employer must keep these records, or a suitable summary of them, available for at least 30 years (where the records are representative of the personal exposures of identifiable individuals), or for at least five years in any other case.
A record is suitable where it provides sufficient information to show:
- when the monitoring was done and what the results were;
- what monitoring procedures were used, including duration;
- the locations where samples were taken, the operations in progress at the time and,
- in the case of personal samples, the names of the individuals concerned.
The records may be kept in any format as long as they are:
- readily retrievable;
- easy to understand;
- available to employees or their representatives, health and safety enforcement officers and employment medical advisers; and
- capable of having results compared with any health records required under the health surveillance requirements of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations (see E 6.2, Hazardous Substances - Health Surveillance Where Required).