This guidance covers both exposure monitoring and health monitoring. It provides good practice advice for businesses on selecting external monitoring providers and then on putting in place monitoring programmes. Businesses with in-house monitoring providers may also find aspects of this guidance useful.

Your workers’ health is important. Monitoring can be used to effectively manage health risks to your workers that arise from your work.

Working in hazardous conditions can adversely affect workers’ health – in both the short (acute) and long term (chronic).

You must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers, and that other people are not put at risk by your work. In some circumstances, this could mean monitoring worker exposure and/or the health of workers.

This guidance:

• explains what exposure monitoring and health monitoring are
• explains how exposure monitoring and health monitoring are used in managing health risks
• explains when to monitor
• describes what to think about when getting monitoring programmes underway
• explains next steps once decisions have been made.