Frequently Asked Questions

The overall aim of occupational hygiene is for worker health protection. We assess risks to health in your workplace through observation, measurement, and interaction with the people doing the work. An audit or comprehensive report including the results is created.

Whist we make you aware of your legal obligations, we don’t forget to include practical recommendations for action to control risks to health at work. We have a pragmatic approach, working with you for the best solution for you and your employees.

‘Hygiene’ relates to the subject of preserving good health and preventing disease and ill health. We use our expertise to identify which hazardous agents are important to measure for assessing risk, and how to measure, whether chemical, biological, physical, ergonomic. Exposing staff to such risks can lead to ill health or disease, now or in the future. We use various monitoring instruments to measure the harmful substances of concern then use the data to assess the health risk.  We provide you with useful information to improve the situation in an easy to understand format.

As an employer you have legal responsibilities to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of your employees and others who may be affected by the work you do. The Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA) (1974) puts a formal legal duty on employers and employees as the main UK health and safety Law. There is a wide range of separate laws covering a variety of topics with the aim of guiding you towards minimising the risk of harming the health and safety of your staff.  The laws include COSHH – The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations, Control of Noise at Work Regulations, The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations. The first step as one of your legal obligations is to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment for the particular hazard (thing that could cause harm) to assess the risk (chance harm or ill health/injury may occur).

The HSE website statistics show that for the year 2015-16:

• 3 million working people are suffering from a work-related illness
• 4 million working days were lost due to work-related illness and workplace injury
• £14.1 billion estimated cost of injuries and ill health from current working conditions (2014/15).

To risk assess properly workplace air monitoring may be needed as a one off or regularly to identify where control needs to be improved.