Chemical store assessment

Very little handling is needed, and we would prefer that you do none. Keep the store locked and do not reorganise it, because the arrangement itself is evidence. Find whatever paperwork exists, including old stock lists, purchase orders and notes from former staff. Also make sure you know who holds responsibility for the room, since that person should hear the chemist's findings directly.

If you have concerns about a specific item, mention them when arranging the visit. Say what it is, where it is and why you are concerned, and keep people away from that area. If you think there is an immediate danger, do not wait for a visit: follow the steps on our emergency chemical removal page.

The chemist works through the store systematically, shelf by shelf, looking at each container without treating or disturbing anything more than is needed. The visit is intended to answer five questions about your stock:

• what is here, as far as it can be established safely
• what state each container and closure is in
• what is stored next to what, and whether it should be
• which items present a risk now, and which can wait
• which items are still of use to you, and which should go

An assessment can include stock requiring specialist attention, such as dried picric acid and other potentially unstable chemicals. It can also record the presence of radioactive sources, explosives, gas cylinders, asbestos and controlled drugs, so that each can be dealt with through the right process. Recording an item does not mean it can be removed on the same visit.

A routine collection suits a store where stock is mostly known and containers are sound. An assessment suits a store where those things are in doubt. These are situations where an assessment can be particularly useful:

A new technician starts and the previous one left no records. A school joins a trust, and the central team has no idea what its store holds. A hospital department or research group closes and leaves stock behind. A building survey or refurbishment opens up a locked cupboard. Or a stock check turns up something like an old tin of metal under evaporated oil, and nobody wants to be the person who moves it.

Age is a useful guide. Containers from before 1990 deserve more caution, since old closures can fail and old labels may use names and symbols nobody now recognises. If the only way to read a label is to pick up the bottle and turn it round, and the bottle looks doubtful, that is a sign the job should start with a chemist.

You should get something you can act on, not a general account of good practice. A sound report lists each container or group, with its location, its likely identity and how confident the chemist is about that. It records condition, and ranks each item by the urgency of the risk it presents. It flags incompatible storage, such as oxidisers near organics or acids beside cyanides. And it ends with a disposal list, with the items sorted into those that can be collected routinely and those needing special arrangements.

Risk ranking is where the chemist's judgement earns its fee. A shelf of old lead salts can usually wait for a planned collection, while one bottle of dried-out picric acid may need specialist attention before anything else happens in the room. A list that gives them equal weight is not useful to a business manager deciding where to start. Good reports separate problems of hazard from problems of tidiness, and they say which is which.

The disposal list can then be priced directly as a collection. A report written with collection in mind also reduces time on the packing day, since the difficult items have already been identified.

The Department for Education's guidance says schools should conduct regular audits, account for their chemicals at all times and have routine surveillance to confirm stock remains safe to store. It also says they should have access to professional advice, along with their own suitably trained staff. An assessment contributes to those expectations. It does not transfer them.

Outside education, the same logic applies under general duties. Under COSHH, employers identify hazardous substances, decide who might be harmed and how, and decide what further action is needed. DSEAR requires them to find out what dangerous substances are in the workplace and what the risks are. A report gives whoever carries out those assessments better information, but they still need to be done, and the employer stays responsible for them.

The report also helps with waste classification, since the chemist's view of a bottle's identity supports the description that later goes on a consignment note. Under WM3, waste with a mirror entry whose composition genuinely cannot be established takes the hazardous entry, so the more that can be identified, the fewer lines need that cautious treatment.

An old store may hold chemicals that nobody has thought about in security terms. Several common stock chemicals are on the Home Office list of explosives precursors and poisons, and businesses that use or hold them must report significant losses or thefts. If a store has no history, nobody can say whether anything is missing. A report gives you a dated baseline for the first time.

Any material that may be explosive is treated differently. HSE's explosives guidance applies, and the DfE notes that transport and disposal of desensitised explosives may need a classification or authorisation from HSE. A chemist who finds such an item will tell you what needs to happen next, and that may involve people other than the carrier.

• the site address, and which rooms and cupboards are in scope
• approximate size of the store, by number of shelves or cabinets
• any existing stock lists, even if they are many years old
• what prompted the assessment, including specific concerns
• names of former staff who may remember the stock
• safeguarding, permit or induction requirements for visitors
• who will receive the report, and who has authority to approve what follows

Bear in mind that a store assessment produces findings you may need to act on, including ones you did not expect. It is worth deciding in advance who will make those decisions and where the budget will come from, so the report does not sit in a drawer once it arrives. Our annual stock check collection is one way of keeping a store in good order after that first look.