Why Do A Risk Assessment?

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The Five Steps to Risk Assessment

How to do workplace risk assessment?

There are five key steps:

	Identify the hazards
	Decide who might be harmed and how
	Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions
	Record your findings and implement them
	Review your assessment and update if necessary

1. Identify the hazards

First you need to work out how people could be harmed.

When you work in a place every day it is easy to overlook some hazards, so here are some tips to help you identify the ones that matter:

Walk around your workplace and look at what could reasonably be expected to cause harm.

Ask your employees what they think. They may have noticed things that are not immediately obvious to you.

Check manufacturers’ instructions or data sheets for chemicals and equipment as they can be very helpful in spelling out the hazards and putting them in their true perspective.

Have a look at your accident and ill-health records – these often help to identify the less obvious hazards.

Remember to think about long-term hazards to health (e.g. high levels of noise or exposure to harmful substances) as well as safety hazards.

2. Decide who might be harmed and how

For each hazard you need to be clear about who might be harmed; it will help you identify the best way of managing the risk.

Identify groups of people (e.g. ‘people working in the office’ or ‘visitors’).

Identify how they might be harmed (i.e. what type of injury or ill health might occur. For example, shelf stackers may suffer back injury from repeated lifting of boxes).

Some workers have particular requirements (e.g. new and young workers, new or expectant mothers and people with disabilities may be at particular risk).

Extra thought will be needed for some hazards;

Cleaners, visitors, contractors, maintenance workers etc, who may not be in the workplace all the time;

Members of the public, if they could be hurt by your activities;

If you share your workplace, you will need to think about how your work affects others present, as well as how their work affects your staff – talk to them; and ask your staff if they can think of anyone you may have missed.

3. Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions

Having spotted the hazards, you then have to decide what to do about them. The law requires you to do everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect people from harm.
So first, look at what you’re already doing, think about what controls you have in place and how the work is organised.
Ask yourself - Can I get rid of the hazard altogether? If not, how can I control the risks so that harm is unlikely?

When controlling risks, apply the principles as follows:

	Try a less risky option (e.g. switch to using a less hazardous chemical).
	Prevent access to the hazard (e.g. by guarding).
	Organise work to reduce exposure to the hazard.
	Issue personal protective equipment (e.g. clothing, footwear, goggles etc).
	Provide welfare facilities (e.g. first aid and washing facilities).

Improving health and safety need not cost a lot. Failure to take simple precautions can cost you a lot more if an accident does happen.

4. Record your findings and implement them

Putting the results of your workplace risk assessment into practice will make a difference when looking after people and your business.

Writing down the results of your workplace risk assessment, and sharing them with your staff, encourages you to do this. You need to be able to show that:

	A proper check was made.
	You asked who might be affected.
	You dealt with all the significant hazards, taking into account the number of people who could be involved.
	The precautions are reasonable, and the remaining risk is low.
	You involve your staff or their representatives in the process.

If, like many businesses, you find that there are quite a lot of improvements that you could make, big and small, don’t try to do everything at once.

Make a plan of action to deal with the most important things first.
Health and safety inspectors acknowledge the efforts of businesses that are clearly trying to make improvements.

A good plan of action often includes a mixture of different things such as:

	A few cheaper or easy improvements that can be done quickly.
	A temporary solution until more reliable controls are in place.
	Long-term solutions to those risks most likely to cause accidents or ill health.
	Long-term solutions to those risks with the worst potential consequences;
	Arrangements for training employees on the main risks that remain and how they are to be controlled.
	Regular checks to make sure that the control measures stay in place.
	Remember, priorities and tackle the most important things first.

5. Review your risk assessment and update if necessary

Your workplace will not stay the same. Sooner or later, you will bring in new equipment, substances or procedures that could lead to new hazards. It makes sense to review what you are doing on an ongoing basis.

Every year or so formally review where you are, to make sure you are still improving, or at least not sliding back. Look at your workplace risk assessment procedures regularly.

	Have there been any changes?
	Are there improvements you still need to make?
	Have your workers spotted a problem?
	Have you learnt anything from accidents or near misses?
	Make sure your risk assessment stays up to date.

During the year, if there is a significant change, don’t wait for the review date. Check your risk assessment and, where necessary, amend it.

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