An SDS is a safety data sheet: the document a supplier provides with a hazardous substance, describing what it is, what it can do to people and the environment, and how to handle, store and deal with it. It is the single most misunderstood document in workplace safety, because firms collect them diligently and then believe the collecting was the job. It was not. The sheet describes the substance in general; your assessment describes what happens when your people use it in your building, and only one of those two things is a duty you can discharge by filing.
What the sheet is, and who has to give it to you
Under the chemical classification and labelling regime that applies in Great Britain, a supplier placing a hazardous substance on the market has duties to classify it, label it and provide a safety data sheet to the person receiving it for use at work. The sheet has a standard structure of numbered sections, running from identification and hazard identification through composition, first aid, firefighting, accidental release, handling and storage, exposure controls and personal protection, and on to physical properties, stability, toxicology, ecology, disposal, transport and regulatory information. The structure is why sheets from different suppliers can be compared at all.
The sheet is an input, not an assessment
The sheet cannot know how much of the substance you use, for how long, in what ventilation, by how many people, or what else is happening in the same room. Those are the things that decide exposure, and exposure is what the regulations ask you to control. A firm with a complete set of sheets and no assessments has bought the ingredients and not cooked. The free COSHH assessment worksheet on this site starts from the sheets you have and prices the assessments they are supposed to feed.
MSDS and SDS are the same document under two names
MSDS is the older term, still used widely in the United States and in conversation everywhere. SDS is the current name under the globally harmonised system that both the GB regime and the US hazard communication standard now follow. If a supplier sends you something called an MSDS today it is usually just a habit of language, but it is worth a glance at the section numbering: a genuinely old sheet may predate the current classification and its hazard statements may not match the label on the container you were sent.
Sheets go out of date, and the file has to notice
Classifications change, formulations change and suppliers change. A sheet from 2016 sitting against a substance you still buy is a live risk of assessing against the wrong hazards. Keeping the sheet as a record against the substance, with the date it was issued and the date you last checked it, is what makes that visible; keeping it as a PDF in a shared folder is what makes it invisible.
Questions people ask about sds
What is the difference between an MSDS and an SDS?
In practice, the name. SDS is the current term under the globally harmonised system and has a defined sixteen-section structure; MSDS is the older term that many people, and some suppliers, still use. The thing to check is not the title but whether the sheet's classification and hazard statements match the label on the container you actually received.
Do I have to keep safety data sheets?
You need the information in them to assess and control exposure, and in practice that means keeping the current sheet for every hazardous substance you hold, against the substance rather than in a general folder. What the regulations ask you to keep is the assessment; the sheet is the evidence you assessed against the right hazards.
Can I use the safety data sheet as my COSHH assessment?
No. The sheet describes the substance; the assessment describes your use of it. Two firms with the same sheet can need completely different controls, and the assessment is the document that says which yours are and why. Attaching the sheet to an assessment is right; substituting it for one is the most common failure in this area.