COSHEM common mistakes
COSHEM · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When a scenario asks for the first action after a workplace injury, the candidate immediately describes treatment, investigation, or notification instead of securing the scene and making the area safe.
Candidates conflate the legal duty to notify with the immediate practical duty to prevent further harm, and they recall the reporting hierarchy better than the sequence of emergency response. Under time pressure, the most familiar administrative step crowds out the physical safety step.
What to do instead
For every incident scenario, apply a fixed first-response sequence: preserve life and give first aid, make the scene safe and prevent escalation, then isolate and preserve evidence, then notify internally, then notify the regulator within the statutory timeframe. Practise writing this sequence for five different scenarios until it is automatic.
The candidate treats risk assessment as a one-off paperwork exercise and fails to state that controls must be monitored, reviewed, and updated when the process, people, or legislation changes.
Training often focuses on the hierarchy of control and the assessment method, leaving the review cycle as an afterthought. Candidates also confuse the initial assessment with the ongoing management system requirement for monitoring and review.
What to do instead
Build a standard closing sentence into every risk assessment answer: controls are implemented, monitored for effectiveness, and the assessment is reviewed at defined intervals and after any change, incident, or new hazard information. Link this explicitly to the monitoring and performance evaluation domain.
When selecting controls, the candidate jumps to personal protective equipment or training before demonstrating that elimination, substitution, engineering controls, and administrative controls have been considered and found not reasonably practicable.
PPE and training are the most visible and easiest controls to describe, and candidates remember them from everyday workplace practice. The hierarchy of control is often memorised as a list rather than applied as a decision rule with justification.
What to do instead
In every control answer, write the hierarchy in order and explicitly state why each higher-order control is or is not reasonably practicable before arriving at the chosen control. Use the phrase 'so far as is reasonably practicable' correctly and show the weighing of risk against cost, time, and difficulty.
The candidate describes a chemical hazard only by its label or smell and omits the exposure route, the dose-response relationship, and the role of the safety data sheet and workplace exposure limits.
Candidates rely on general awareness of hazardous substances rather than the structured assessment process. They also confuse hazard (the intrinsic property) with risk (the likelihood and severity of harm under specific conditions of use).
What to do instead
For any chemical scenario, always state the substance, the physical form, the route of exposure (inhalation, skin absorption, ingestion, injection), the exposure limit and monitoring method, and the control measures matched to that route. Practise reading a safety data sheet and extracting the exposure controls and occupational exposure limit sections.
The candidate answers a noise question using only the sound pressure level in dB(A) and ignores peak exposure, exposure duration, and the distinction between hearing protection and noise control at source.
Everyday language about noise centres on loudness, so candidates default to a single average level. The exam tests the legal action values, which depend on both daily exposure and peak level, and the hierarchy that puts engineering noise control first.
What to do instead
Memorise the action values and limit values for daily exposure and peak sound pressure, and in every answer state both the level and the duration, then apply the hierarchy: reduce noise at source, then limit exposure time and distance, then provide hearing protection as a last resort with fitting, training, and audiometric testing.
The candidate treats manual handling as a matter of lifting technique and personal strength rather than a risk assessment of the task, load, environment, and individual capability, with controls that redesign the task.
Workplace culture and basic training emphasise 'bend your knees' advice, which is memorable but does not reflect the legal requirement to avoid, assess, and reduce manual handling risk. Candidates therefore miss engineering and organisational controls.
What to do instead
Use a structured manual handling assessment framework: avoid the handling, assess the task, load, environment, and individual, then reduce risk through mechanical aids, team lifting, layout changes, and work organisation. State that technique training alone is not an adequate control.
The candidate describes psychosocial hazards vaguely as 'stress' and fails to name specific hazards such as excessive workload, low control, bullying, harassment, violence, and poor organisational change management, or to propose controls at the organisational level.
Psychosocial risk is often treated as a personal resilience issue rather than a work design issue, and candidates lack a vocabulary for naming the hazards. They default to employee assistance programmes and stress awareness training, which are individual-level responses.
What to do instead
Learn a recognised psychosocial hazard framework and in every answer name at least three specific hazards, then propose controls that change how work is designed, organised, and managed, such as workload planning, role clarity, supervisory training, and anti-bullying policies with reporting routes. Treat individual support as supplementary, not primary.
The candidate describes a health and safety management system as a set of documents and a policy statement, without the plan-do-check-act cycle, leadership commitment, worker participation, and performance measurement.
Candidates equate the management system with the manual and the certificate. They memorise the elements as a list but do not understand how the elements interact as a continuous improvement cycle.
What to do instead
Draw the plan-do-check-act cycle from memory and place each management system element within it: policy and planning, implementation and operation, checking and corrective action, and management review. For any scenario, identify which stage of the cycle is failing and what the next stage should do.
The candidate confuses consultation with communication and information, and describes telling workers about a decision as consultation, or omits the duty to consult workers and their representatives on matters that affect their health and safety.
In practice, many organisations inform rather than consult, so candidates model what they have seen. The legal distinction between providing information, consulting, and jointly deciding is subtle and rarely practised.
What to do instead
Define the three terms precisely: information is one-way, consultation is a two-way exchange before a decision with genuine opportunity to influence it, and participation is involvement in decision-making. In every answer on change, risk assessment, or training, state who must be consulted, when, and how the outcome is recorded and fed back.
The candidate describes monitoring and auditing as the same activity, or lists lagging indicators such as injury rates as the only measure of performance, without leading indicators or a clear audit scope and criteria.
Both activities produce reports and both are associated with checking, so the distinction blurs. Injury rates are the most familiar metric, and candidates have little experience of proactive performance measurement.
What to do instead
Separate the terms: monitoring observes ongoing activity and conditions against standards, auditing is a systematic, independent, documented examination against defined criteria. In every answer give both lagging indicators (incidents, lost time, claims) and leading indicators (inspections completed, training coverage, corrective actions closed on time, near-miss reporting rates), and state the audit scope, criteria, and follow-up process.