Phoenix Journal · LEV Testing
Health surveillance is the duty that catches harm before it becomes a diagnosis or a claim - and it works hand in hand with the extraction and LEV controls your kitchen already relies on.
Occupational health · COSHH
Health surveillance is the quiet duty that catches harm before it becomes a diagnosis, a claim or an enforcement notice - and in a busy kitchen it sits right alongside the extraction and ventilation work you already budget for.
Under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH), your first duty is to prevent exposure to hazardous substances and, where that is not reasonably practicable, to control it adequately. In a commercial kitchen the substances are rarely exotic - flour and enzyme improvers on the bench, cleaning chemicals and degreasers at the sink, and combustion products such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) from gas ranges and chargrills. Local exhaust ventilation (LEV) and a well maintained extraction canopy are how you control much of that. Health surveillance is how you prove the control is actually working, day after day, on the people who breathe and touch it.
It is easy to treat surveillance as paperwork for a doctor to worry about. It is not. It is a management tool that belongs to you as the employer, and getting it right protects your staff, your business and your insurance position in equal measure.
COSHH Regulation 11 requires health surveillance where your staff are exposed to a substance linked to a specific disease or adverse health effect, and where there is a reasonable likelihood that the disease or effect will show under the conditions of the work, using a valid technique to detect it. In plain terms - if a residual risk of ill health remains after you have put your controls in place, you almost certainly need surveillance.
Two conditions dominate kitchen and food-production settings.
Flour dust is a respiratory sensitiser. It carries a Workplace Exposure Limit of 10 mg/m³ averaged over eight hours and 30 mg/m³ over fifteen minutes, but because it is an asthmagen the HSE expects you to reduce exposure as far below that limit as is reasonably practicable - it regards less than 2 mg/m³ over eight hours as usually achievable. Bakers now report the highest rate of new occupational asthma of any occupation, and in early 2026 the HSE ran a targeted inspection campaign of bakeries specifically checking that dusty ingredients are being controlled. Where flour, dust or enzyme improvers are handled, respiratory surveillance is expected.
Once someone is sensitised, even tiny future exposures can trigger a serious attack, and the damage can end a career. That is why early detection matters so much - and why surveillance is built around catching the first quiet signs, not the crisis.
Wet work, frequent hand washing, and contact with detergents, sanitisers and degreasers make kitchen skin a genuine hazard. Frequent exposure to soaps and cleaners alone accounts for more than a quarter of all work-related contact dermatitis. Where that risk remains after gloves, barrier creams and safer products, you should run skin surveillance - typically a brief, regular visual check of the hands and forearms by a trained responsible person, often monthly. Work-related dermatitis is also reportable to the HSE under RIDDOR, so spotting and recording it early is part of your legal footprint, not just good practice.
The numbers that anchor your duty
Three figures sit at the heart of getting occupational health surveillance and its supporting ventilation right. Keep them close - inspectors do.
The 14-month figure is the thread that ties surveillance back to your extraction. If health surveillance is how you check the outcome, LEV testing is how you check the control that produces it. A canopy or ducted extraction run that has drifted below its capture velocity will quietly raise exposure long before anyone coughs, and only a thorough examination and test will reveal it.
A defensible programme is designed and overseen by a competent occupational health professional - a doctor or nurse familiar with the relevant risks - and COSHH Regulation 12 makes competence a legal requirement for anyone carrying out assessment, monitoring or surveillance. It is usually tiered, so effort matches risk.
Quality of testing matters as much as frequency. Spirometry is only reliable when the operator is properly trained - in the UK the Association for Respiratory Technology and Physiology (ARTP) certifies operators to perform, interpret, or both. Results should be reviewed at the group level as well as the individual level, because a cluster of early changes across a team is often the first sign that a control - your extraction included - has slipped.
Then close the loop. If surveillance flags a problem, you are required to act - re-examine the exposure, tighten or repair the controls, and where necessary move the affected worker away from exposure. Surveillance that identifies harm but changes nothing is worse than none at all, because it documents that you knew. Building this properly is a project in itself, and our guide on how to build a health surveillance programme walks through it step by step.
The cost of getting it wrong is not abstract. COSHH breaches carry improvement and prohibition notices, unlimited fines, up to two years' imprisonment in the most serious cases, and the HSE's Fee for Intervention when you are found in material breach. A single sensitised or dermatitis-affected employee can also bring a civil claim that dwarfs the price of prevention - we set the real numbers out in the real cost of an occupational health claim. Records kept for the full 40 years are what let you defend yourself, or prove exposure years after the fact.
Questions
Under COSHH Regulation 11 you must provide health surveillance where staff are exposed to a substance linked to a specific disease or health effect, and there is a reasonable likelihood the effect will appear under the working conditions and can be detected by a valid technique. In practice, if a residual risk of ill health remains after your controls are in place - such as respiratory risk from flour dust or skin risk from cleaning chemicals - surveillance is expected. It is a legal duty, not an optional extra.
Individual health surveillance records must be kept for at least 40 years from the date of the last entry. This is far longer than most workplace records because occupational diseases such as asthma and some lung conditions can take years or decades to develop or to be linked back to a job. Keeping full records is also how you demonstrate compliance and defend against a claim long after an employee has moved on.
They are two halves of the same duty. Local exhaust ventilation and kitchen extraction are how you control exposure at source, while health surveillance checks whether that control is genuinely protecting people. COSHH Regulation 9 requires a thorough examination and test of LEV at least every 14 months by a competent person, because a system that has drifted below its capture velocity will raise exposure long before anyone reports symptoms.
COSHH Regulation 12 requires anyone carrying out surveillance to be competent for the task. Clinical surveillance such as spirometry or lung-function testing should be designed and overseen by an occupational health doctor or nurse, with spirometry performed by an operator certified through the ARTP. Simpler checks, such as routine visual skin inspections for dermatitis, can be done in house by a trained responsible person supported by that occupational health provider.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Phoenix examines and tests local exhaust ventilation to HSG258 and COSHH - measured, reported and certificated, UK-wide.