Risk Assessment Guidance

INTRODUCTION

The most important tool in managing health and safety is risk assessment. This is careful examination of what in the workplace could cause harm to people, so that decisions can be made as to whether enough precautions have been taken, and whether additional ones should be introduced, to prevent harm. There are five stages to risk assessment: identifying the hazards, identifying who could be harmed and how, risk evaluation, recording the significant findings and monitoring and reviewing the risk assessment.

WHO MUST MANAGE THE RISK?

All employers and self-employed people are required to assess the risks to their employees and others who can be affected by their work or business.

Others who could be affected include:

A visitor to the workplace
A consumer for products or services
A resident in the neighbourhood
A contractor carrying out work on the premises.

HAZARD AND RISK

"Hazard" means anything that can cause harm e.g. chemicals, electricity, machinery, heavy loads etc.

"Risk" is the chance that harm will occur.

CARRYING OUT RISK ASSESSMENTS

Those who are involved in risk assessments should:

Be competent
Have knowledge and experience of working procedures in practice, potential dangers and strengths and weaknesses of existing precautions
Have knowledge and experience of how to solve problems identified by the assessment
Be in a position to give the commitment, co-operation and resources required to implement the assessment results.

It is important that the person carrying out the risk assessment is competent. This means that the person must have the necessary skills and knowledge gained through experience and training and may have qualifications that enable them to make sound judgements.

The five stages of risk assessment

The risk assessment activity can be illustrated by a simple diagram as follows:

STAGE 1 - IDENTIFY THE HAZARDS

Look for hazards by walking around the workplace. List the hazards that could reasonably be expected to cause harm. Ask for the opinion of employees as they may have noticed things that are not immediately obvious.

Examples of hazards include:

Cables trailing over floors
Fire
Chemicals
Work benches which are too high or too low
Electricity
Loads which have to be moved manually
Work equipment
Working environment e.g. ventilation, lighting, heating.

STEP 2 - IDENTIFY WHO MAY BE HARMED AND HOW

List groups of people and individuals who may be affected by the hazards e.g.

Staff
Members of the public
Contractors on the premises.

Pay particular attention to vulnerable persons, e.g. those with disabilities, visitors, female employees who are pregnant or who have recently returned to work after having a baby, inexperienced employees or young persons.

STEP 3 - EVALUATE AND CONTROL THE RISK

Evaluate the risks arising from the hazards and decide whether existing precautions are adequate or if more should be done. When evaluating the extent of the risk, account should be taken of the chance of some harm occurring, the likely severity of this, and the number of people who could be affected. The simplest way of describing the evaluation is by designating 'extreme', 'high', 'medium', 'low' or 'insignificant' ratings. (See table below)


Risk Ratings
	Slightly harmful	Harmful	Extremely harmful
Highly Unlikely	INSIGNIFICANT RISK	LOW RISK	MEDIUM RISK
Unlikely	LOW RISK	MEDIUM RISK	HIGH RISK
Likely	MEDIUM RISK	HIGH RISK	EXTREME RISK

Even after all precautions have been taken some risk may remain. Ensure the precautions in place meet standards set by legal requirements; comply with a recognised standard, represent good practice and reduce the risk as far as is reasonably practicable.

Where additional controls or further action are necessary to reduce the risk, decide what more could reasonably be done by adopting the following principles:

Avoid the risk completely
Evaluate risks which cannot be avoided
Combat risks at source
Adapt work to the individual
Make use of technical progress
Replace the dangerous with non or less dangerous
Develop an overall prevention policy
Give priority to measures which protect the greatest number of people
Give appropriate instructions to employees.

IMPLEMENTING AN ACTION PLAN

Once the level of risk has been determined and the control measures needed to reduce or eliminate the risk established, an action plan should be drawn up with timescales for implementation of the control measures. The table below may be used as a guide for devising such an action plan.


RISK LEVEL	ACTION AND TIMESCALE
Insignificant	No action is required and no documentary records need to be kept.
Low	No additional controls are required. Consideration may be given to a more cost effective solution or improvement that imposes little or no additional cost burden. Monitoring is required to ensure that controls are maintained.
Medium	Efforts should be made to reduce the risk, but the costs of prevention should be carefully measured. Risk reduction measures should be implemented within a defined time period. Where the moderate risk is associated with extremely harmful consequences, further assessment may be necessary to establish more precisely the likelihood of harm as a basis for determining the need for improved control measures.
High	Work should not be started until the risk has been reduced. Considerable resources may have to be allocated to reduce the risk. Where the risk involves work in progress, urgent action should be taken.
Extreme	Work should not be started or continued until the risk has been reduced. If it is not possible to reduce risk even with unlimited resources, work has to remain prohibited.

Examples of suitable control measures are given in the table below:


Hazards	Example Controls
Manual handling	Mechanical aids, hoists, getting assistance, breaking loads into smaller units
Hazardous substances	Substitution for less hazardous alternatives, extract ventilation, personal protective equipment
Work equipment (ladders, machinery, tools, etc.)	Guarding, demarcation of danger zones, restricted operation and use, planned preventative maintenance
Electricity	Insulated tools, residual circuit breakers, fuses, earthing, inspection and testing of systems and appliances
Stairs, etc.	Good lighting, handrails, non-slip surfaces, slightly raised/highlighted front edges
Fire	Detection/warning systems, suitable storage facilities for substances and goods, fire retardant furniture and fittings
Noise	Reduction at source, isolation, ear protection, demarcation of danger zones
Stress	Reduce/increase workload, more control over work, work suitable for individual, avoidance of monotonous repetitive work
Work environment	Good lighting, ventilation, redesign layout of area, heaters/coolers

STEP 4 - RECORD YOUR FINDINGS

If you have less than five employees, risk assessments do not have to be written down. If you employ five or more people, the significant findings of the assessment must be recorded. However you are advised to keep records even where there are less than five employees since these provide evidence that something has been done.

Keep any written assessments for future reference and ensure that employees are informed of the findings and control measures, either existing or additional, that have to be observed and used. In some circumstances the findings of the risk assessment should also be given to others who could be affected, for example agency workers, contractors etc.

STEP 5 - MONITOR AND REVIEW THE ASSESSMENT

It is important that the control measures are monitored and that records are kept. A regular review of the assessments should be made to take into account any changes to the methods or systems of work. You should also review the assessment following an accident, where there has been a significant change to the work, if new information comes to light, or if there is any other reason to believe that it may no longer be valid. Following the review, additional control measures should be implemented if required. Even if there are no significant changes since the original risk assessment, it should be regularly reviewed to confirm that it is still relevant and valid.