Any workplace using chemicals, dusts or fumes: from cleaning products and adhesives to workshop solvents and process fumes.
Chemicals, dusts and fumes cause occupational lung and skin disease, including asthma, COPD, and irritant and allergic dermatitis, often building up from repeated low-level exposure rather than one incident.
The pack works through the hierarchy of control (eliminate, substitute, engineer, then PPE last), reading a safety data sheet for hazard statements and precautions, selecting gloves for the specific chemical, respiratory protective equipment and face fit testing, and safe labelling, decanting, mixing and dealing with spills.
One hazard, done completely, for the whole firm.
The pack also has a theory test answer key. It is supplied separately to the employer, not published in the pack itself, so the test stays a genuine assessment when your own supervisor marks it.
Available where a customer, principal contractor or insurer wants third-party evidence.
You assess your own people in-house using the pack, and send PHW the completed records. PHW checks the records and, where they hold up, issues a certificate carrying a QR code that resolves to a live verification page. The certificate states plainly that the assessment was carried out in-house and verified by PHW, recording PHW's verification of that in-house assessment; records that are too thin are rejected rather than certified.
HSE prosecutions in this line of work.
£50,000 + £7,247 costs · 2026-02-12
An agency worker was doused with corrosive drain unblocker from an uncapped container during decanting, causing burns to the face, eye, neck and arm.
Read the case →£10,000 + £3,625 costs · 2023-11-22
Improvement notices on welding fume and powder coating dust extraction were issued twice without the failures being fixed.
Read the case →£267,000 · 2026-08-25
Five leaks of extremely flammable hydrocarbons between February 2018 and September 2019 were all attributed to corrosion under insulation, and HSE found the company's arrangements for inspecting insulated pipework inadequate.
Read the case →