In early 2022, Great Britain’s National Poisons Information Service (NPIS) announced that poison centre notification (PCN) according to Annex VIII harmonized format was retroactively mandatory for consumer and professional use mixtures placed on the Great Britain (GB) market after January 1, 2021. This announcement left chemical manufacturers and suppliers scrambling to get their notifications in order.
After the initial announcement that PCN must be in Annex VIII format, NPIS began rejecting voluntary SDS notifications in the United Kingdom (UK) voluntary format. However, in light of all the confusion, NPIS has now confirmed that PCNs will be accepted in either the Annex VIII or UK voluntary formats until further notice. Legal clarity is still being sought on the retained CLP legislation in GB.
To summarize:
• If you did not previously submit PCN in GB, you will now need to submit to be compliant
• If you have already submitted Annex VIII notifications in GB, you are compliant.
• If you voluntarily submitted any poison centre notifications since January 1, 2021, they are compliant for now but may need to be resubmitted in the Annex VIII format in future.
• Notification requirements in Northern Ireland are unaffected.
We will provide further updates when more information is available.
CLP Annex VIII in Great Britain: update to notification procedures
