Biological hazards at work: employer duties explained

An overflowing sharps bin on a care-home night shift. Sewage splashing a cleaner’s face. Soiled bedding left for a hotel housekeeper without gloves. Infection risk comes with these jobs, but accepting unsafe work does not. Your employer must assess the risk and prevent or properly control your exposure.

What to do if your work exposes you to infection

1. Deal with the immediate danger. Follow the workplace exposure procedure and seek medical help if you have been injured or exposed. Tell the clinician what happened at work. Reporting paperwork must not hold up treatment.
2. Record the task and the failure. Note the date, place, material you handled, missing controls and who you told. Keep messages and incident records. Take photographs only where safe and without exposing patients’ or residents’ private information.
3. Ask for a specific fix. Message your manager and safety rep. For example, “The sharps bin in the sluice room is overfilled. Please replace it and confirm how we should handle sharps safely until then.” Ask what the risk assessment requires. Agency staff should tell both the agency and the hirer.
4. Escalate if the risk remains. Ask your union to help and report unresolved safety failures to HSE or the council, depending on the workplace. If you lose shifts or your job after taking protected safety action, seek employment advice promptly. A safety complaint does not preserve a tribunal deadline.

What counts as a biological hazard

You do not need to work in a laboratory for infection to be an occupational hazard.

Biological agents include bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites that can cause infection, allergy or toxicity. Blood, body fluids, sewage, animal waste and contaminated laundry can carry them. Breathing contaminated dust or droplets, a splash to your eyes, hand-to-mouth contact and a contaminated sharp can all expose you.

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, known as COSHH, cover deliberate work with biological agents and incidental exposure arising from work. Think of a care assistant emptying a commode, a nursery worker changing nappies, a refuse loader handling waste or a farm worker helping an animal give birth. The employer must assess the task and the route of exposure, not dismiss infection as “part of the job”.

These duties concern risks arising from work. They do not make every cold caught from a colleague a COSHH breach or a reportable occupational disease. HSE’s guidance on incidental exposure explains the distinction.

What your employer must do about infection risk

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to protect employees’ health, safety and welfare so far as is reasonably practicable. COSHH sets more specific duties for hazardous substances, including biological agents.

1. Assess the actual risk. Identify the agents or contaminated materials, how exposure could happen, who is exposed and who needs extra protection. Employers with five or more employees must record the significant findings. Smaller employers still have to assess the risk. Review the assessment when it is no longer valid or work changes significantly.
2. Prevent or adequately control exposure. Remove the hazard where reasonably practicable. Otherwise use safer processes, engineering controls and safe systems of work. PPE comes after those controls, not instead of them.
3. Keep controls working. Maintain, examine and test control measures as required. A broken extraction system or unavailable protective kit is a failed control, not a completed assessment.
4. Provide health surveillance where required. The need depends on the agent, exposure and statutory criteria. It is not a blanket requirement to test everyone for infection.
5. Train you for the task and for incidents. Explain how to handle contaminated materials, use the equipment and report a splash, spill or sharps injury. You need instructions you can understand, including on your first shift.

Employers also owe duties to people affected by their business who are not their employees, including contractors and visitors. Agencies and hirers must co-operate over agency workers’ safety. Employees must take reasonable care and co-operate with safety measures. Your duty to use the kit does not excuse the employer from providing it.

Deliberate laboratory work has additional containment and notification requirements. HSE’s CBA1 guidance asks for notification at least 20 days before first use at premises of a Group 2, 3 or 4 biological agent. The containment level must suit the work and the agent. Those extra laboratory rules do not reduce your employer’s duties when exposure is incidental.

Do you get protective kit and training free?

Yes. If you need personal protective equipment to do the job safely, your employer provides it free, maintains it, stores it, and shows you how to use it.

The Great Britain PPE regulations were extended to limb (b) workers on 6 April 2022. These are people who undertake to work personally for someone who is not their own business client or customer. Casual and zero-hours staff can qualify; a contract label does not settle your status. The employer responsible for providing required PPE cannot charge you for it.

Suitable protection depends on the assessed risk. A care worker may need gloves and an apron; a splash risk may require eye and face protection. Tight-fitting respiratory protection needs a proper fit test. Handwashing facilities, safe laundry handling and secure sharps disposal matter too. A box of gloves does not replace a safe waste system.

For agency work, ask both the agency and the hirer who provides and maintains each item. You should not be left between two businesses, each saying it is the other’s problem. Our PPE guide explains the wider duties.

Must your employer offer vaccines?

If the risk assessment identifies exposure to an agent for which an effective vaccine is readily available, the employer should offer vaccination as a protective measure. It must be free. Hepatitis B vaccination may be relevant where your tasks expose you to infected blood. The decision depends on the task and exposure, not simply whether your job title says “carer” or “cleaner”.

You can decline the offer. HSE says employers must then consider whether other controls are effective and whether additional controls are needed so you can work safely. Vaccination supplements those controls; it does not replace them. We cannot promise that refusal will never affect your duties or employment. If your employer threatens dismissal, get advice about the particular risk, alternatives and your reasons for declining.

Ask about vaccination and workplace health policies if your manager claims jabs are your problem or your cost. They are not.

Extra protection if you are pregnant or vulnerable

Your employer’s infection assessment must consider workers who are especially vulnerable, including those whose immune system is suppressed. Young workers also need assessment that takes account of their inexperience and development. Tell occupational health or the appropriate manager about a relevant condition so they can consider your risk and suitable controls.

Pregnancy has a specific safety procedure. Once you tell your employer in writing that you are pregnant, breastfeeding or have given birth within the last six months, they must carry out an individual risk assessment. If a risk cannot be controlled, the order is to adjust conditions or hours, offer suitable alternative work on the same terms, then suspend on full pay where the statutory maternity-suspension entitlement applies. HSE sets out this risk-assessment procedure. See our pregnancy discrimination guide for employment protection.

That paid-suspension entitlement is not a general right for everyone who is immunocompromised. The employer still has to protect your safety, and disability law may require reasonable adjustments. Get advice about your status and pay before accepting unpaid leave as the only option.

When must infection be reported?

RIDDOR reporting, your workplace incident record and a safety complaint are different things. Two RIDDOR routes matter for biological agents.

RIDDOR regulation 9 covers any disease attributed to occupational exposure to a biological agent. There is no closed list of infections. For an employee, the responsible person must have received a written diagnosis from a registered medical practitioner. Tell the doctor what you handled and how you were exposed, and ask them to record any diagnosed work link. Send the written diagnosis to the employer and keep a copy. A nurse’s fit note supporting sick pay is not, by itself, the doctor’s diagnosis required for this reporting route.

A dangerous occurrence does not wait for a diagnosis. HSE’s biological-agent guidance ties the severe-illness threshold to Hazard Groups 3 and 4. A laboratory containment failure involving such an agent can qualify even if nobody becomes ill. Not every sewage splash, spill or needlestick automatically qualifies. The agent and circumstances matter. For a qualifying event, Schedule 1 requires notification without delay and a report within 10 days; it is not permission to wait 10 days before notifying.

Ask in writing, “Has this been reported under RIDDOR? Please confirm the report reference.” If the employer refuses or ignores you, use the regulator’s safety-concern route. HSE says injured employees should not submit the employer’s RIDDOR report themselves. Agency staff should ask the agency and hirer to identify the responsible person. For self-employed people, the diagnosis and reporting arrangements differ; use HSE’s reporting guide.

Who do you report your employer to?

In Great Britain, the main activity of the workplace usually determines whether HSE or the council’s environmental health team enforces safety law.

Local authority environmental health covers shops, supermarkets, warehouses, hotels, catering, offices, leisure, and care homes without nursing. HSE covers hospitals, nursing homes, farms, factories, labs and waste sites. A residential care home goes to the council. The same home with nursing goes to HSE. A dirty kitchen in a hotel goes to the council. The same failure in a food factory goes to HSE.

Check HSE’s enforcement allocation guidance or ask the regulator if the workplace is mixed-use. Give dates, the affected task, the missing control and what happened when you raised it. HSE’s safety-concern form is separate from the employer’s RIDDOR form. For council-enforced premises, contact the local environmental health team.

Bring in your union safety rep. UNISON represents many health and care workers; GMB and Unite cover workers across cleaning, logistics, food and hospitality. Your rep can help put the risk to management and support a complaint. For employment-rights advice, contact Acas, Citizens Advice or a law centre. A safety regulator deals with unsafe work; an employment tribunal deals with a claim about unlawful retaliation. One route does not replace the other.

How much sick pay do you get?

For new sickness absences under the rules in force from 6 April 2026, SSP starts on the first qualifying day of sickness, with no lower earnings limit. The weekly rate is the lower of £123.25 or 80% of average weekly earnings, for up to 28 weeks. It is payable for qualifying days, normally the days you would work, not automatically every calendar day. Check your contract for better sick pay. You do not have to prove the illness came from work to qualify.

Employees qualify if they meet the SSP conditions. HMRC confirms that some workers are also treated as employees for SSP purposes. Agency workers supplied to work under a client’s supervision, direction and control can qualify as employed earners even without an ordinary employment contract. Casual and zero-hours arrangements can qualify too. Genuinely self-employed people do not get SSP. Check the rules for different employment types before accepting a refusal.

Tell your employer promptly that you cannot work. Give a fit note if you are off for more than seven consecutive days, including non-working days. If SSP is refused, ask for the reason and form SSP1; you can challenge an eligibility decision through HMRC. Universal Credit or Employment and Support Allowance may help if you cannot get SSP, depending on their conditions. Our SSP guide explains claims and disputes.

Can you refuse work that risks infection?

There is protection, but it is not a general right to refuse any task that worries you. Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 protects workers from detriment when they leave, propose to leave or refuse to return to a dangerous workplace or part of it. You must reasonably believe the danger is serious and imminent, and be unable reasonably to avert it. Protection also covers appropriate steps to protect yourself or others from danger you reasonably believe is serious and imminent.

For employees, section 100 makes dismissal for qualifying safety action automatically unfair, with no minimum service requirement. The unfair-dismissal right is for employees; the serious-danger detriment protection extends to other workers. Losing shifts can be a detriment. A safety disclosure may also qualify for whistleblowing protection if the statutory conditions, including reasonable belief in the public interest, are met.

Uncontrolled sewage spraying onto you or care work with no effective controls during an outbreak may raise serious-danger questions. These are examples, not automatic legal verdicts. If you leave the dangerous area, explain the specific risk to your manager as soon as you can, preferably in writing. Keep the risk assessment, messages, rotas and payslips, and contact your rep or adviser promptly. Whether the legal conditions are met depends on the facts and what you reasonably believed at the time.

What if you handle food?

If you have vomiting or diarrhoea, tell your manager immediately. The Food Standards Agency says managers must exclude affected staff from work with or around open food, normally for 48 hours after symptoms stop naturally. Its fitness-to-work guidance explains the food-hygiene duties and applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Follow the relevant local guidance and any longer exclusion advice for your illness.

This is exclusion from food handling, not automatically a ban on every kind of work. Nor does the 48-hour advice create a separate entitlement to full wages. Your pay depends on SSP eligibility, whether you remain incapable of work and any contractual sick pay. The FSA warns that penalising excluded staff can encourage them to work while ill. Ask the employer to confirm safe duties and pay in writing.

Can you claim compensation for an infection?

A personal injury claim may be possible if your employer’s breach of duty caused your illness. Infection alone does not prove that. You need evidence of the exposure, the failure and the causal link. Keep task records, training information, details of missing controls, incident reports and medical evidence. Ask for your own health-surveillance records where relevant. Get legal advice early because time limits and proof can be difficult.

Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit is a separate route for certain prescribed diseases associated with particular work. It is not a payment for every work-related infection. Check the prescribed disease and occupation conditions in the official guidance, or ask a welfare-rights adviser or your union.