Risk Assessment
Contact:
Telephone: (023) 9244 6654
Risk assessment
- How does it affect me?
You may have heard the term risk
assessment from visiting Environmental Health Officers carrying out
inspections, from trade magazines and publications, and from a
variety of other sources. It follows the principle of self
management, where the employer is responsible for their own
workplace and how other groups of people, employees or public, are
affected by it. The principle underpinning this concept is to be
aware of hazards and control the risks.
Risk assessment is a legal
requirement under Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and
Safety at Work Regulations 1999. An employer or self-employed
person must carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the
risks arising out of or in connection with work to employees, the
public and themselves. Accidents often result in lost money, for
example, through staff illness, and compensation
claims.
What is risk
assessment?
A risk assessment is a thorough
examination of what could cause harm to people in your work.
The definitions for hazard and
risk are:
- Hazard - is
something with the potential to cause harm, whether thats a
substance, a piece of machinery, an activity, the building itself
or the method of work;
- Risk - is the
possibility of the harm being realised.
Regulation 3 of the Management of
Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 seeks to ensure that the
hazards are identified and assessed and action taken to minimise
the likelihood of the hazard(s) being realised.
How do I carry
out a risk assessment?
Keep it simple, the
Health and Safety Executive
has devised a logical sequence called
"5 steps to Risk
assessment":
| Step 1 |
Look for the hazards. |
| Step 2 |
Decide who might be harmed and how. |
| Step 3 |
Evaluate the risks and decide whether the existing precautions
are adequate or more needs to be done. |
| Step 4 |
Record your findings, inform affected employees. |
| Step 5 |
Review your assessment on a regular basis or whenever something
changes and revise if necessary. |
Step 1 - Look for the
hazards
Take a look at the workplace, for
example awkward corners, a jutting drawer of the filing cabinet,
how is machinery used, practices in the workplace: are people
zigzagging past boxes that should have been stacked ages ago, while
walking over flexes consider the accident book, are there any
accidents that could have been prevented?
Be realistic and look for the
obvious. In an office, do you store the filing on a high shelf? How
do people place and retrieve the files? How heavy are they? How
secure is the shelf?
In a warehouse, do you know the
maximum weights you can safely stack? Do employees observe them?
How do they stack?
Look at potentially dangerous
substances. Do you have the safety data sheets, or manufacturers
instructions in the event of an accident?
Look for hazards that could cause
injury or affect several people. It is important to ask and involve
your employees, they know what happens on a day-to-day basis.
Step 2 - Decide who might be
harmed and how
Consider how many people might be
harmed and how severe the worst case scenario would be. The more
people in danger and the more serious the accident, the more
important the controls become. Include specific groups of people
such as young workers, trainees, or pregnant people; they may need
extra consideration.
Step 3 - Evaluate the risks and
decide whether existing precautions are adequate or more needs to
be done
Each hazard has the potential to
cause harm. You have looked for the hazards, now you need to decide
the likelihood of them being realised.
Many activities in the workplace
are covered by regulations, such as dangerous machinery, hazardous
substances, manual handling, etc. Are you doing what the law asks
you to? Have industry guides, good trade practice and standards
been put in place?
You should aim to eliminate (if
possible) and certainly reduce the risk of the hazard occurring.
The law says you must do what is reasonably practicable to make
your work safe.
Draw up a priority action list,
with hazards that have the potential to cause the greatest harm and
for the highest number of people at the top of the list. Look at
ways to eliminate the hazard altogether. If that is not possible
look to control the hazards so that the chance of them being
realised is minimised.
When controlling risks follow the
principles below:
- try a less risky option, e.g. change from using a hazardous
substance to an alternative that is less hazardous
- prevent access to the hazard (for example, by guarding or
restricting access to qualified staff)
- organise work to reduce exposure to the hazard
- issue personal protective equipment, but make sure it does not
pose a second hazard
- provide welfare facilities for example, washing facilities for
removing contamination
It need not be expensive;
installing a mirror around a blind corner or putting non-slip mats
on a slippery floor are inexpensive precautions, or arranging for
fire drills, to test your fire precautions. Failure to take simple
precautions can cost a lot of money if an accident does
happen.
Step 4 - Record your
findings
The law on this is clear. Every
employer and every self-employed person must make a suitable and
sufficient risk assessment.
Ask yourself if you can
demonstrate the following:
- Identification of the hazards connected with your work
- considered the harm if the hazard were to be realised
- asked who and how many people might be affected
- action taken to minimise the hazard by controlling the
risk
- the precautions are reasonable and the remaining risk is
low
If you employ five or more
people, you must record your significant findings and keep the
written record in an easily retrievable format as proof for
visiting inspectors or any civil liability action. It helps to
demonstrate you have done what the law asks you to. Staff may also
find it useful to refer to the document.
Step 5 - Review and
revision
Anything that introduces a hazard
must trigger a review of the risk assessment. For example, if you
purchase new machinery, change a process or procedure, you should
review your risk assessment. New hazards must be considered
in their own right and, again, do all you can to minimise or
eliminate the risk.
It is good practice to review
your assessment on a regular basis to check for new hazards and see
if the control measures are still effective. Remember to involve
your staff as they often work with the hazards on a regular
basis.
REMEMBER: Keep
it simple and reduce the risk to the lowest level reasonably
practicable.
If you would like further advice,
please contact Environmental Health's Commercial Team Duty
Officer.
Contact:
Telephone: (023) 9244 6654
e-mail: mailto:ehcommercial@havant.gov.uk